Enzyme-like catalysis of polyoxometalates for chemiluminescence: Application in ultrasensitive detection of H2O2 and blood glucose

We show that vanadomolybdophosphoric heteropoly acid (H 5 PMo 10 V 2 O 40 , PMoV 2 ), one of the polyoxometalates (POMs), presents peroxidase-like activity that can catalyze the luminol/H 2 O 2 reaction to generate chemiluminescence (CL) emission. Based on this foundation, we report an enzyme-free luminol/H 2 O 2 /PMoV 2 CL system that can be utilized for the ultrasensitive detection of H 2 O 2 . The CL intensity exhibits good linear dependence on H 2 O 2 concentration in a wide range up to 5000 nM with a limit-of-detection of 5 nM. The method was successfully used for the determination of glucose in human serum. Our study paves the way for the application of functional POM materials in a variety of biosensing assays, such as the determination of cholesterol, uric acid , lactate, etc., in which H 2 O 2 is a product of oxidoreductase enzymes.