Uncapped nanobranch-based CuS clews used as an efficient peroxidase mimic enable the visual detection of hydrogen peroxide and glucose with fast response

Nanosized materials acting as substitutes of natural enzymes are currently attracting significant research due to their stable enzyme-like characteristics, but some flaws of these nanozymes, including their limited catalytic rate and efficiency, need to be remedied to enable their wider applications. In this work, we verify for the first time the catalytic behavior of uncapped nanobranch-based CuS clews as a peroxidase mimic. XRD, XPS, SEM, and TEM proofs demonstrate that high-purity CuS clews composed of intertwined wires with abundant nanodendrites outside are successfully produced via a facile one-pot hydrothermal synthesis approach, with thiourea as both the sulfion source and the structure-directing agent. The synthesized CuS can catalytically oxidize 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) by H₂O₂ to trigger a visible color reaction with rapid response (reaching a maximum change within 5 min). The proposed CuS nanozyme exhibits preferable catalytic kinetics over natural horseradish peroxidase (HRP). This outstanding activity primarily results from the large surface area and rich sites exposed by the uncapped unique structure. Under optimized conditions, the fabricated sensing system provides linear absorbance (652 nm) changes in the H₂O₂ concentration range of 0.2˜130 μM, with a detection limit of as low as 63 nM. When coupled with glucose oxidase (GOD), the system is demonstrated to be capable of monitoring glucose in blood samples with excellent performance.