Colorimetric Sensor Arrays for Antioxidant Discrimination Based on the Inhibition of the Oxidation Reaction between 3,3′,5,5′-Tetramethylbenzidine and Hydrogen Peroxides

The discrimination of antioxidants is of great significance because of their essential roles in various biological processes and many diseases. Compared with the traditional lock-key sensing mode for single target detection at a time, sensor arrays can discriminate various antioxidants simultaneously. Nanomaterial-based sensor arrays have shown great promise for antioxidant discrimination; however, as far as it is known, none of them have been reported for discriminating antioxidants based on the catalytic reaction of intrinsic peroxidase-like activity of two-dimensional nanomaterials. To fill the gap, we herein unveil a colorimetric (e.g., UV–vis absorption) approach for antioxidant discrimination based on the three nanomaterial [graphene oxide, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), and tungsten disulfide (WS2)]-catalyzed 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB)–hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) reaction system. In this sensor array, the antioxidants inhibit the reaction between TMB and H2O2, resulting in different colorimetric response patterns. The obtained patterns for five antioxidants, including ascorbic acid, cysteine, melatonin, uric acid, and glutathione (GSH), at the 60 nM level, were successfully discriminated using linear discriminant analysis both in buffer and serum samples.