A decanuclear iron cluster with robust peroxidase-like activity for rapid colorimetric detection of tetracycline in food and environmental samples

/TMB colorimetric reaction, enabling a simple inhibition-based colorimetric assay. Under the established conditions, the assay showed a good linear response to TC in the range of 0.005-0.08 mM, with a detection limit of 0.233 μM. The method was successfully applied to the quantification of TC in real samples (milk, river water, pond water, and tap water) using the standard addition method, demonstrating its practical applicability. Beyond sensing, Fe-TzBD also enabled the efficient catalytic oxidation of typical organic dyes (crystal violet, methylene blue, and malachite green), with kinetics consistent with a pseudo-first-order model, highlighting its potential for pollutant degradation. Overall, this work demonstrates synthesized well-defined decanuclear iron clusters as efficient peroxidase mimics for rapid colorimetric tetracycline detection and environmental remediation.