Two Birds with One Stone: Surface Functionalization and Delamination of Multilayered Ti3C2Tx MXene by Grafting a Ruthenium(II) Complex to Achieve Conductivity-Enhanced Electrochemiluminescence

Two-dimensional (2D) nanosheets have captured significant attention in constructing highly efficient electrochemiluminescent (ECL) materials because their high surface area and fully exposed postmodification sites could greatly increase the loading amount of luminophores. However, traditional 2D nanosheets as carriers exhibited natively poor electrical conductivity that restricted the electrochemical activation and the utilization ratio of ECL luminophores. Herein, to overcome this drawback, we utilized conductive 2D Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets as carriers to graft Ru(bpy)(2)(mcpbpy)(2+) (bpy = 2,2'-bipyridine, mcpbpy = 4-(4'-methyl-[2,2'-bipyridin]-4-yl) butanoic acid) via a dehydrative condensation reaction and electrostatic interaction. Interestingly, Ru(bpy)(2)(mcpbpy)(2+) played the role of two birds with one stone, where Ru(bpy)(2)(mcpbpy)(2+) acted as both an ECL luminophore and an intercalation molecule to achieve surface functionalization and delamination of multilayered Ti3C2Tx successfully, obtaining 2D ultrathin Ru-complex-grafted MXene nanosheets (Ru@MXene). Owing to the high load capacity and superior electrical conductivity of an ultrathin 2D MXene nanosheet, the obtained Ru@MXene exhibited a superb ECL emission. As expected, compared with the nonconductive 2D ultrathin metal-organic layers (MOLs) as carriers to graft Ru(bpy)(2)(mcpbpy)(2+), the ECL intensity and ECL efficiency of Ru@MXene presented about 5-fold and 1.7-fold enhancement, respectively. Considering these advantages, Ru@MXene was applied to construct an ECL sensor for ultrasensitive determination of mucin 1 (MUC1), which displayed superb sensitivity (100 ag/mL to 10 ng/mL) with a low detection limit of 26.9 ag/mL. Overall, the conductivity-enhanced ECL based on Ru@MXene opened a fire-new chapter to develop splendent performance ECL emitters and shed new light on the application potential of conductive materials in the bioanalysis field.

Automated summary

In this study, conductive 2D Ti3C2Tx MXene nanosheets were used as carriers to graft Ru(bpy)(2)(mcpbpy)(2+) luminophores, resulting in the formation of high load capacity Ru@MXene nanosheets with superior electrical conductivity, leading to excellent ECL emission performance.