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Characterizing Lewis Pairs Using Titration Coupled with In Situ Infrared Spectroscopy
Published on: February 20, 2020
Lewis Pair-Engineered CuMnOx as Cold-Adapted Multinanozyme for Cooperative Hydrolytic and Oxidative Degradation of
Huile Liu1,2, Ziyi Di1,2, Qing Tian1,2
1School of Life Sciences and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China.
Abstract:
The full-component utilization of lignocellulosic biomass under mild conditions remains a formidable challenge for both biocatalytic systems and industrial processes. Herein, we report a Lewis pair engineering strategy to construct a defective Cu-doped Mn oxide nanozyme (D-CuMnOx) featuring the simultaneous introduction of manganese and oxygen vacancies. The resulting undercoordinated Mn sites act as Lewis acids to activate glycosidic bonds, while adjacent oxygen species serve as Lewis bases to promote nucleophilic attack and electron transfer, thereby collectively lowering the energy barriers for both hydrolytic and oxidative reactions. As a consequence, D-CuMnOx exhibits an approximately fourfold enhancement in glycosidase activity and markedly improved cold-adapted performance compared with oxygen-vacancy-only CuMnOx, while simultaneously maintaining robust oxidase-like activity. Benefiting from these advantages, D-CuMnOx serves as a cooperative hydrolytic-oxidative platform that enables the depolymerization of cellulose and hemicellulose alongside the oxidative cleavage of lignin, thereby achieving simultaneous degradation of the major components in raw corn stalks under mild and low-temperature conditions. This work establishes Lewis pair engineering as a versatile strategy for the rational design of multifunctional cold-adapted nanozymes and highlights their considerable potential for sustainable biomass valorization.
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