Zirconium Metal–Organic Frameworks as Micromotors with Enzyme-like Activity for Glutathione Detection

Herein, we report a novel UiO-67-Co(bpy)0.35 micromotor synthesized by a facile postsynthesis metalation via introducing cobalt salts ligated with 2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′dicarboxylic acid into UiO-67-bpy0.35 framework. The Co2+ active sites can decompose H2O2 to generate bubbles to power UiO-67-Co(bpy)0.35. Meanwhile, the UiO-67-Co(bpy)0.35 micromotor exhibits robust peroxidase-like activity through catalyzing H2O2 to generate •OH under neutral conditions. Based on this, a sensing platform was constructed for the colorimetric detection of GSH. Due to the synergy of self-driven motion and excellent peroxide-like activity, UiO-67-Co(bpy)0.35 micromotor can sensitively detect GSH with a low analytic limitation as 0.13 μM for GSH detection. This study provides a new sight of using the postsynthesis metalation method to prepare Zr(Co)-MOF micromotor for highly selective, sensitive, and facile detection of GSH.