Here, we demonstrated a novel method to decorate Cu9S5 nanocrystals on polyaniline (PANI) nanowires using the dopant of mercaptoacetic acid (MAA) in the PANI matrix as the sulfur source under a hydrothermal reaction. relative to natural enzymes, such as easy and low costs of preparation, purification and storage, greater resistance to extremes of acidity, temperature and inhibitors1,2,3. Indeed, many enzyme mimics such as hemin, hematin, hemoglobin, cyclodextrin, porphyrin etc. have been developed and applied in the fields of clinical diagnosis, environmental science and biotechnology4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. At present, the synthesis and application of nanomaterials in the field of catalysis has become an active field of scientific research because of their large surface area, high catalytic activity and Mouse monoclonal to ERN1 good selectivity, and some nanomaterials have been found to possess enzyme mimetic activity13. For example, Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles were first reported to process intrinsic peroxidase-like activity, which could be used to detect H2O2 and thrombin14,15,16. The nanomaterials as artificial enzyme mimics take the advantages of low cost, easy preparation, high activity and good stability. In the past few years, various kinds of nanomaterials have been explored as enzymatic mimics, including metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) and nanowires (such as Fe3O4 NPs, Co3O4 NPs, CuO NPs, CeO2 NPs, V2O5 nanowires)14,17,18,19,20, metal-based nanomaterials (such as Au NPs, bimetallic alloy NPs, bimetallic hybrid nanorods)21,22,23,24, carbon nanomaterials (such as graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanodots)25,26,27, chalcogenide nanomaterials (such as FeS, FeSe, CuS, CdS NPs)28,29,30,31, multiferroic nanomaterials (such as BiFeO3 NPs, CoFe2O4 NPs)32,33, and even coordination polymer NPs34 or carboxyl functionalized mesoporous polymer35. During the process of catalytic reactions, the interfaces play an important role, which could result in a better activity and selectivity36. Recently, Yang and JTC-801 co-workers designed multiple metal-metal oxide interfaces to study the catalysis of sequential reactions37. It was found that two different kinds of metal-metal oxide interfaces could catalyze two distinct sequential reactions. Therefore, the fabrication of composite nanomaterials with well-defined composition and interfaces has been extensively studied to enhance or extend the functionality of each component. A variety of graphene or carbon nanotube based nanomaterials have been explored with peroxidase-like catalytic activity38,39,40,41. Typically, the Au NPs/graphene composite nanosheets process an enhanced catalytic activity in comparison to the independent Au-NPs and graphene, which could be due to the synergetic effect at JTC-801 their interfaces41. However, such synergetic effect has few been observed in other systems except the carbon based nanomaterials. In this study, we have shown for the first time that conducting polyaniline (PANI)/Cu9S5 composite nanowires showed a superior catalytic activity as artificial enzyme mimics compared to the JTC-801 independent polyaniline and Cu9S5 nanocomponents due to their synergetic effect. PANI is one kind of conducting polymers that has been extensively studied in the past few decades. Compared to other intrinsic conducting polymers, the doping level of PANI can be simply controlled by a reversible acid/base doping/dedoping process42. In recent years, PANI nanomaterials have attracted much attention because of their unique physical and chemical properties such as large surface area and high conductivity. Especially, one-dimensional PANI nanostructures such as nanofibers, nanorods and nanowires have become a focus subject in the field of conducting polymer nanotechnology because they process the advantages of both excellent conductivity and low-dimensional systems43. On the other hand, nanocomposites with PANI and inorganic nanomaterials showed improved electrical, thermal and optical properties due to the combined effect of the two components44. For the PANI based nanocomposites, the interactions between PANI and the inorganic nanomaterials are very vital to produce cooperatively enhanced performances. In the past few years, a series of PANI/sulfide nanocomposites have been fabricated for optic, optoelectronic and photoelectrochemcial applications45,46,47. However, it is still a great challenge to prepare low dimensional PANI nanocomposites with strong interactions between PANI and another inorganic nanocomponent to generate synergetic effect, which achieve an enhanced performance of the nanocomposites. Herein, we have developed a JTC-801 novel method to fabricate PANI/Cu9S5 composite nanowires using the dopant of mercaptoacetic acid (MAA) in the JTC-801 PANI matrix as the sulfur source under a hydrothermal reaction. During the process of the reaction, the Cu9S5 nanocrystals could be in-situ formed on the surface.