Synergistic effect of ternary electrospun TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 /PPy composite nanofibers on peroxidase-like mimics with enhanced catalytic performance

• Published in: RSC advances Vol. 6; no. 37; pp. 31107 - 31113
• Main Authors: Jiang, Yanzhou, Nie, Guangdi, Chi, Maoqiang, Yang, Zezhou, Zhang, Zhen, Wang, Ce, Lu, Xiaofeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/C5RA26706D

In this work, we demonstrate the fabrication of polypyrrole (PPy) decorated TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 (TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 /PPy) composite nanofibers with a core–shell structure as an artificial enzyme system with a high peroxidase-like activity. The TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 nanofibers with a diameter in the range of 40–150 nm and a relatively narrow distribution of diameter size are prepared via an electrospinning technique and followed by a calcination process. Then we are able to in situ polymerize a layer of PPy on the surface of the TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 nanofibers by using Fe 2 O 3 on the surface of nanofibers as an oxidant. The resulting ternary TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 /PPy composite nanofibers exhibit an enhanced peroxidase-like activity toward the oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) in the presence of H 2 O 2 over independent TiO 2 , Fe 2 O 3 and TiO 2 /Fe 2 O 3 composite nanofibers due to the synergistic effect. On the basis of the high peroxidase-like activity, a simple approach for the colorimetric detection of H 2 O 2 with a detection limit of 2.4 μM and a linear detection range from 2 to 50 μM has been proposed. This work offers a new way for manipulating the enzyme-like performance of electrospun nanofibers for a wide range of potential applications in biosensing and environmental monitoring.