Single-Atom Iron Boosts Electrochemiluminescence

Abstract

The traditional luminol–H2O2 electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensing platform suffers from self-decomposition of H2O2 at room temperature, hampering its application for quantitative analysis. In this work, for the first time we employ iron single-atom catalysts (Fe-N-C SACs) as an advanced co-reactant accelerator to directly reduce the dissolved oxygen (O2) to reactive oxygen species (ROS). Owing to the unique electronic structure and catalytic activity of Fe-N-C SACs, large amounts of ROS are efficiently produced, which then react with the luminol anion radical and significantly amplify the luminol ECL emission. Under the optimum conditions, a Fe-N-C SACs–luminol ECL sensor for antioxidant capacity measurement was developed with a good linear range from 0.8 μm to 1.0 mm of Trolox.