Highly Active Oxygen Evolution Reaction of NiMoO₄ Sub-1 nm Nanowires Boosts Luminol Electrochemiluminescence

In recent years, there has been an increasing research focus on the luminol-H₂O electrochemiluminescence (ECL) system due to its ability to address the instability and toxicity of H₂O₂, which are common issues associated with the conventional luminol-H₂O₂ ECL system. To enhance the ECL efficiency of the luminol-H₂O system, researchers have developed electrocatalytic materials with exceptional oxygen evolution reaction (OER) properties to facilitate water electrolysis into O₂ to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and act as co-reactant promoters. However, most of these materials are characterized by their nanoscale or microscale dimensions, resulting in relatively large sizes and low specific surface areas, which hinder the application of the luminol-H₂O system. To address this challenge, nickel molybdate sub-1 nm nanowires (NiMoO₄ S1 NWs) with a large specific surface area is synthesized that can offer many active sites to enhance the performance of the OER to boost the ECL of luminol. This study demonstrates that the large amount of ROS generated by the OER of NiMoO₄ S1 NWs play a crucial role in enhancing the ECL intensity of luminol. Finally, a NiMoO₄ S1 NWs-based ECL biosensor for the highly sensitive detection of the nucleocapsid proteins of SARS-CoV-2 is successfully constructed.