Conducting polymer-based peroxidase mimics: synthesis, synergistic enhanced properties and applications

The concept of artificial enzymes has been proposed for a long time and a large variety of materials have been exploited in enzyme-like catalytic field for decades. The emergence of nanotechnology provides increasing opportunities for the development of artificial enzymes. Conducting polymer-based nanocomposites are a new type of burgeoning functional materials as enzyme mimics owing to their numerous functional groups, excellent electrical conductivity and redox properties. This review summarizes the recent progress of the synthesis of conducting polymers and their nanocomposites, as well as their applications as efficient peroxidase mimics. After a brief description of the development of conducting polymers, we specifically introduce the fabrication of conducting polymers and their nanocomposites via diverse approaches and show the enhanced peroxidase-like catalytic properties. In addition, the mechanism of the enhanced catalytic efficiency of the conducting polymer-based nanocomposites has been proposed. Finally, we highlight the applications of such conducting polymer-based nanocomposites in the sensitive detection of different types of substances. It is anticipated that this review will pave the way for developing more intriguing functional nanomaterials as enzyme mimics, which shows promising applications in a great many technological fields.