Silver-based metal-organic gels as novel coreactant for enhancing electrochemiluminescence and its biosensing potential

Metal-organic gels (MOGs), a kind of soft materials, were reported as a brand new category of novel solid coreactants for enhancing electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of Ru (bpy)(3)(2+) and derivatives. In this work, silver based MOGs (Ag-MOGs) prepared by a one-step mixing and heating approach were demonstrated as novel efficient solid-state coreactants which differ from the previous research on ECL coreactant nanomaterials. It was discussed that the possible enhancement mechanism was due to the amino-rich groups and the electro-catalytic effect of Ag-MOGs, endowing them promising coreactants for the enhancement of Ru (bpy)(3)(2+) ECL. Interestingly, Ag-MOGs can also enhance the ECL signal of Ru (phen)(3)(2+), a derivative of Ru (bpy)(3)(2+) that can specifically insert into double strand DNA, further manifesting the as-prepared Ag-MOGs can be served as ideal coreactant materials. Based on the Ru (phen)(3)(2+)/Ag-MOGs system, a label-free signal-on ECL biosensor for detecting of target DNA was constructed to illustrate the potential application of Ag-MOGs. This research presents an effective coreactant for Ru luminophore-based ECL systems, which not only broadens the potential application of MOGs, but also offers a unique insight into the coreactant materials.