Mo-doped carbon-dots nanozyme with peroxide-like activity for sensitive and selective smartphone-assisted colorimetric S2− ion detection and antibacterial application

Sulfur ion (S 2− ) plays a significant and considerable role in many living organisms and ecosystems, while its abnormal content can pose a serious hazard to human health and ecological environment. Hence, it is extremely meaningful to construct a highly sensitive and selective analytical platform for S 2− detection in complex microenvironment, particularly in biological systems. In this study, phosphomolybdic acid and L-Arg were utilized to prepare a new molybdenum doped carbon-dots nanozyme (Mo-CDs) with great peroxidase-like activity by one-step hydrothermal approach. In the presence of H 2 O 2 , Mo-CDs converted 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethyl benzidine (TMB) into blue oxTMB, but S 2− strongly reduced the blue solution to colorless and then brown, which established significant selectivity toward S 2− . Mo-CDs illustrated a wide linear range (2.5 μM–900 μM) and low detection limit (LOD = 76 nM) by ultraviolet and smartphone-assisted visualized colorimetric analysis. Especially, the smartphone-assisted analysis platform successfully realized quick, portable, sensitive and visible identification of S 2− with high recovery (95.7–106.7 %) and excellent specificity in water samples. More importantly, Mo-CDs was developed to antibacterial applications based on good peroxidase-like activity. This research not only constructed a new and efficient carbon-dots nanozyme and a low-cost, portable, visual analysis platform for real-time detection of S 2− , but also proposed a novel design strategy and methodology for exploiting multifunctional nanozyme detection tool with great practical application.