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

We show that vanadomolybdophosphoric heteropoly acid (H5PMo10V2O40, PMoV2), one of the polyoxometalates (POMs), presents peroxidase-like activity that can catalyze the luminol/H2O2 reaction to generate chemiluminescence (CL) emission. Based on this foundation, we report an enzyme-free luminol/H2O2/PMoV2 CL system that can be utilized for the ultrasensitive detection of H2O2. The CL intensity exhibits good linear dependence on H2O2 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 H2O2 is a product of oxidoreductase enzymes.