Ruthenium,nitrogen-codoped carbon aerogels for real-time electrochemical monitoring of cellular hydrogen peroxide release

Abstract

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an important signaling molecule for diverse biological functions, and it is thus of importance to develop sensing platforms for real-time monitoring of cellular release of H2O2. Herein, a H2O2 electrochemical sensor is constructed based on ruthenium,nitrogen-codoped carbon aerogels. The nanocomposites are prepared by controlled pyrolysis of a biomass hydrogel with RuCl3, where RuNx single-atom sites and Ru nanoclusters are incorporated into the aerogel scaffold, as confirmed by high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements. In cyclic voltammetry and amperometric analysis, the aerogels exhibit a remarkable H2O2 detection performance, with excellent sensitivity and selectivity, wide linear range (0.1 μΜ ∼ 1 mM) and low detection limit (0.01 μM). The sensor can also be used for real-time monitoring of hydrogen peroxide released from MCF-7 cells and screening of anticancer drugs, displaying a high potential for biosensing and biomedical diagnostics.