Dual‐Site Trigger Electronic Communication Effects to Accelerate H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> Activation for Colorimetric Sensing of Uranyl Ions in Seawater
Xiangkun Jia, Lei Jiao, Ruimin Li, Chengjie Chen, Xiaotong Li, Lijun Hu, Yanling Zhai, Chengzhou Zhu, Xiaoquan Lu
Abstract
Abstract Efficient activation of hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) through biomimetic catalysis still faces a major challenge. In this work, inspired by the catalytic pocket of natural peroxidase, Cu single atom (Cu SA ) and AuCu nanoparticles (AuCu NPs ) anchored on nitrogen‐doped carbon skeleton (Cu SA ‐AuCu NPs /NC) serve as dual active sites that significantly accelerate the charge transfer process and thus achieve efficient H 2 O 2 activation. Meanwhile, the experimental and theoretical calculations show that the well‐established electronic communication effect between Cu SA and AuCu NPs results in moderate electronic modifications to Cu SA , which promotes the heterolysis of H 2 O 2 and the timely desorption of H 2 O. As a proof of concept, Cu SA ‐AuCu NPs /NC show remarkable performance in detecting uranyl ions in seawater. This work provides new insights into the H 2 O 2 activation for colorimetric sensing.