A Cu2O-CDs-Cu three component catalyst for boosting oxidase-like activity with hot electrons

Abstract

More challenges are faced for the design of an ideal multi-component photocatalyst because it is required to attain synergies of each component function. In order to boost light-driven chemical conversions, here we provides a Cu2O-CDs (carbon dots)-Cu three component oxidase-like catalyst that can effectively yield chemically useful energetic electrons under visible light irradiation. This catalyst shows light-boosting oxidase-like activity for catalytic oxidation of o-phenylenediamine (OPD) and remarkably high reaction rate. By Michaelis–Menten model fitting, the obtained maximum reaction rate reaches to 9.47 μM min−1, which is much larger than other analogous nanozymes reported previously. Moreover, we carefully demonstrated the roles of each component played in light-boosting oxidase-like catalytic reaction and offered an insight into the mechanism of OPD oxidation in the presence of Cu2O-CDs-Cu. This work could open a promising route to ideal catalysts that can effectively couples thermal and photonic stimuli to drive oxidase-like activity.