Fine-Tuning Pyridinic Nitrogen in Nitrogen-Doped Porous Carbon Nanostructures for Boosted Peroxidase-Like Activity and Sensitive Biosensing

Abstract

Carbon materials have been widely used as nanozymes in bioapplications, attributing to their intrinsic enzyme-like activities. Nitrogen (N)-doping has been explored as a promising way to improve the activity of carbon material-based nanozymes (CMNs). However, hindered by the intricate N dopants, the real active site of N-doped CMNs (N-CMNs) has been rarely investigated, which subsequently retards the further progress of high-performance N-CMNs. Here, a series of porous N-CMNs with well-controlled N dopants were synthesized, of which the intrinsic peroxidase (POD)like activity has a positive correlation with the pyridinic N content. Density functional theory calculations also reveal that pyridinic N boosts the intrinsic POD-like activity of N-CMNs. Pyridinic-N dopant can effectively promote the first H2O desorption process in comparison with the graphitic and pyrrolic N, which is the key endothermic reaction during the catalytic process. Then, utilizing the optimized nanozymes with high pyridinic N content (NP-CMNs) and superior POD-like activity, a facile total antioxidant capacity (TAC) assay was developed, holding great promise in the quality assessment of medicine tablets and antioxidant food for healthcare and healthy diet.