Abstract
Biocatalysts, referred as enzymes, have been widely used in life, industrial, medical, and biological fields due to their high catalytic activity and substrate specificity for specific reaction. However, it has disadvantages in industrial applications due to the drawbacks in its characteristics as a catalyst, such as the high cost, the narrow operation conditions in terms of pH and temperature, and the low durability. Recently, many studies on nanozymes for replacing enzymes have been widely conducted to overcome these drawbacks. The nanozyme has a relatively wide pH and temperature operation range as compared with the enzyme, which is a kind of protein, and has a high durability over a long period of time. It is also expected to be able to be mass-produced at relatively low cost. However, the nanozymes still lacks of the substrate specificity, which is one of the most important features of enzymes. Furthermore, only few nanozymes have been reported which exhibits higher or comparable catalytic activity compared with enzymes. This review first discusses the classification of the nanozymes and the corresponding catalytic reactions, focusing on the most developed peroxidase -mimicking nanozymes. Then, it summarizes the most effective peroxidase nanozymes including iron oxides, nanocarbon, and iron- and carbon composite materials and their corresponding reaction mechanisms. After that, the nanotechnology- based approaches to improve the catalytic activity of nanozymes as well as the substrate specificity are covered. Furthermore, the current major application of nanozyme to the biosensor are introduced. Finally, the future directions for nanozyme researches and the applications are suggested.
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