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High-efficiency and durable electrocatalysts in an acidic environment are critical for boosting the development of proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers. Herein, we report an alloy-surface recombination strategy to fabricate a bifunctional nanoporous Pd–Ir alloy catalyst for water splitting in acidic media. The optimized nanoporous Pd50Ir50 alloy exhibits high-efficiency and durable electrocatalytic activity towards OER and HER in 0.5 M H2SO4, presenting 83 and 5 mV lower overpotential than the state-of-the-art Ir/C and Pt/C for OER and HER, respectively. Significantly, the nanoporous Pd50Ir50, as both the cathode and anode catalyst, shows remarkable performance in the water splitting electrolyser, comparable to the commercial electrolyser with paired Pt/C and Ir/C catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphdiyne oxide quantum dots (GDYO QDs), as derivatives of graphdiyne (GDY), have excellent electroconductibility and luminous properties and can be applied as a new ECL emitter. Herein, an electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biosensor for miRNA-21 ultrasensitive determination is constructed based on AuNPs/GDY, GDYO QD and oligonucleotide signal amplification strategy that integrates DNA walker and hybridization chain reaction (HCR) amplification. As electrode substrate material, AuNPs/GDY can not only bond with the aptamer CP but can also enhance the conductivity of the interface. When miRNA-21 exists, the DNA walker process is initiated, and the signaling probes are introduced on the electrode surface, producing abundant double-stranded H1/H2; then, H3/H4 undergoes complementary base pairing with H1/H2 through HCR. With the increase in miRNA-21, the 3D DNA nanomachine is actively manipulated, resulting in a gradual increase in ECL signal. This ECL biosensor demonstrates outstanding performance in the determination of miRNA-21 in the linear range from 0.1 fM to 1 nM. This study offers a new sensitive idea for the clinical analysis of cancer biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphdiyne (GDY) is an sp and sp2 co-hydrocarbon allotrope whose particular structure endows it with many fascinating properties, including abundant chemical bonds, high conjugation, natural pores, high carrier mobility, high conductivity and stability, etc. In this work, two-dimensional graphdiyne is prepared as an electrode substrate material coupling with an exonuclease III-assisted amplification strategy to construct a superior-performance self-powered biosensor based on enzymatic biofuel cells for highly sensitive detection of the tumour marker miRNA-21. Glucose oxidase (GOD) is first immobilized on the GDY/AuNP composite to prepare a bioconjugate. GDY/AuNP modified carbon cloth is used as an enzyme biofuel cell electrode, which is then modified with bilirubin oxidase as a biocathode. The bioconjugate binds to GOD through specific binding to the bioanode. When miRNA-21 is present, specific recognition by exonuclease III in the system results in cleavage of the capture probe, and miRNA-21 is recovered and involved in the cycle. The target miRNA-21 then causes corresponding changes in the open-circuit voltage of the self-powered system. Based on this, a sensitive detection method was constructed, within the scope from 0.1 fM to 0.1 nM with a shallow detection limit of 55.2 aM (S/N = 3). The new approach triumphantly has been used to detect miRNA-21 in serum, which provides a compelling new way for early diagnosis of related cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]