Facile and Green Approach To Prepare Nanostructured Au@MnO2 and Its Applications for Catalysis and Fluorescence Sensing of Glutathione in Human Blood

The increasingly serious environmental problems make it urgent to develop a new type of sustainable green material which can degrade pollutants and monitor human health. However, the traditional preparation methods are frequently limited by tedious operations, high-energy consumption, and massive pollution. Herein, we present a facile and green method for preparation of MnO2 nanoflakes mediated by macrocyclic molecule calix[8]arene. The MnO2 nanoflakes in situ grew on the preformed gold nanoparticles, forming an impressive core–shell Au@MnO2 flake-like nanocomposite. The catalytic properties of Au@MnO2 composite for reduction of 4-NP and degradation of MB were 2.4 and 187 times better than commercial Pd/C, respectively. Meanwhile, the as-synthesized Au@MnO2 nanocomposite exhibited specially excellent sensitivity and selectivity for detection of GSH with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.11 μM. The core–shell nanostructured Au@MnO2 shows great potential value for the sustainable development of the environmen...