Nanozymes ‘artificial peroxidase’ in reduction and detection of organic peroxides

•Prussian Blue based nanozymes catalyze reduction of organic peroxides.•Nanozymes are significantly more active than horseradish peroxidase.•Selectivity of nanozymes to H2O2 is higher as compared to peroxidase. Prussian Blue based nanozymes are able to catalyze reduction of organic peroxides similarly to the enzyme peroxidase. For the whole range of peroxides under study the catalytic rate constant for 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine in case of nanozymes is significantly higher as compared to horseradish peroxidase. Moreover, the selectivity of nanozymes towards hydrogen peroxide relatively organic peroxides reduction is higher than that for the enzyme, which can be explained in terms of different ability of peroxides to penetrate to the bulk of catalytically synthesized Prussian Blue nanoparticles. On the contrary, selectivity of Prussian Blue film modified electrodes is much lower and even negligible among hydrogen, urea and methyl ethyl ketone peroxides. An ability to tune the selectivity would allow individual detection of peroxides in their complex mixtures with Prussian Blue nanostructures.