Ultrathin graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets: a novel peroxidase mimetic, Fe doping-mediated catalytic performance enhancement and application to rapid, highly sensitive optical detection of glucose.

In this article, we demonstrate for the first time that ultrathin graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets (g-C3N4) possess peroxidase activity. Fe doping of the nanosheets leads to peroxidase mimetics with greatly enhanced catalytic performance and the mechanism involved is proposed. We further demonstrate the novel use of such Fe-g-C3N4 as a cheap nanosensor for simple, rapid, highly selective and sensitive optical detection of glucose with a pretty low detection limit of 0.5 μM.