Colorimetric/fluorescent dual-mode assay for antioxidant capacity of gallnuts based on CuCo nanozyme and AIE luminogen

Abstract

In this work, we present a dual-mode assay system consisting of a nanozyme and a luminogen with the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) feature. In the assay system, the chosen nanozyme named CuCo-0 catalyzes the substrate to produce colorimetric signals, while the aggregates of H4ETTC (4,4′,4″,4‴-(ethene-1,1,2,2-tetrayl) tetrakis ([1,1′-biphenyl]-4-carboxylic acid), a typical AIE luminogen, generate fluorescent signals. The peroxidase-like activity of the CuCo-0 nanozyme can be remarkably suppressed with sequential additions of antioxidants, leading to a dual-signal response characterized by enhanced fluorescence emission and reduced UV-vis absorbance. On this basis, a dual-mode assay capable of producing both colorimetric and fluorescent signals for the assessment of antioxidant capacity using gallic acid as a representative antioxidant was exploited. Good linearity can be obtained in the 0–60 μM range for both colorimetric analysis and fluorescent analysis, with detection limits of 1.3 μM and 0.35 μM, respectively. Furthermore, this dual-mode assay was successfully applied to real gallnut samples, yielding satisfactory results.