N-Doped Carbon As Peroxidase-Like Nanozymes for Total Antioxidant Capacity Assay

N-doping strategy has been explored to enhance the activity of carbon nanozymes because the reconstructed electronic structures in N-doped carbon nanozymes are advantageous for the catalytic process. However, carbon nanozymes with high N content are still difficult to obtain due to the instability of N element under high calcination temperatures. To address this challenge, here we proposed a new N-doping strategy to fabricate highly active and specific peroxidase-like carbon nanozymes by using a high N-containing polymer (i.e., polyethylenimine (PEI)) as the N source and a natural clay mineral (i.e., montmorillonite (MMT)) as a template, respectively. We showed that the assembly of MMT with PEI protected N loss under high calcination temperatures and thus retained more catalytically active N sites. The mechanism study showed that the hydroxyl radical could be the key intermediate involved in the peroxidase-like catalysis. We then used the optimized carbon nanozyme with high and specific peroxidase-like activity (i.e., CP600–6) to detect H2O2, glucose, and ascorbic acid. Moreover, we successfully determined the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in real samples including four commercial beverages, fresh orange juice, and three kinds of vitamin C tablets. The current study not only provides a new strategy for fabricating peroxidase-like nanozymes but also develops a facile TAC assay for future use in evaluation of antioxidant food quality and oxidative stress in healthcare.