Solution grown multilayered zinc vanadium oxide nanosheets as a new material to bind glutathione

Development of layered nanostructures with distinct morphology has become an avenue of recent research to engineer targeted properties, especially for electrochemical devices. However, their remarkable characteristics are yet to be exploited for biological applications. In this work, we followed a facile and single-step method and prepared the solution grown zinc vanadium oxide multilayered nanosheets (ZnV2O4 MLNs). Field emission scanning electron microscopy shows the presence of nanosheets about 15–20 nm in height, integrated, and overlapped with one another, conferring a layered morphology. The layers are a structural mixture of triangular and hexagonal shapes. The phase pure and highly crystalline ZnV2O4 MLNs are investigated as an efficient receptor material for the electrocatalytic binding of glutathione, an important biomolecule involved in many cellular processes. This work is the first report where ZnV2O4 MLNs are employed to bind biomolecules. These nanostructured interfaces are expected to increase the effective surface area for detection, improve the planer surface of the sensor, and provide more binding sides for greater sensitivity. The developed sensor enables the sensitive detection of glutathione with outstanding detection limit down to 9 nM and ensures the 100% selectivity at a specific potential when compared to its functional and structural analogues. The study demonstrates the novel multilayer morphology-based interfaces can be a favourable platform to develop immune probes and further establishes their great potential to detect clinical biomolecules and disease biomarkers.