Triethylamine as a complexing reagent for highly efficient naked-eyes copper ions sensing - A new catalytic pathway for ultrasensitive detection

摘要

Using triethylamine (TEA) as the ligand, we observe an extremely highly efficient catalysis towards the decomposition of H_2O_2 by Cu~(2+) that is comparable to the horse radish peroxidase (HRP). The catalytic mechanism is different from the previous work, where the TEA is involved in this reaction to produce highly reductive TEA' radical that can significantly promote the formation of OH' at high TEA concentration, resulting in a significant improvement on the sensitivity for Cu~(2+) detection. This reaction mechanism is an important complement to understand the complicated catalytic pathways of H_2O_2 decomposition, as it can significantly promote the production of OH', which is the most important pathway in sensing and wastewater treatment. It is applied for the sensitive detection Cu~(2+) down to 0.1 nM (or 0.1 fM 40 nm CuO NPs label) by naked eyes, which is to the best of our knowledge, the most sensitive colorimetric method without any instrument. Such a highly efficient Fenton-like (OH' production) catalysis implies its wide applications in sensing and environmental science.