BioNano engineered hybrids for hypochlorous acid generation

•Enzyme-nanosupport hybrid systems designed as active elements for decontamination.•Enzyme-nanosupport hybrid systems generate hypochlorous acid (HOCl).•Rate of HOCl generation is directly related to the retained activity of the immobilized enzyme.•The proposed strategy provides viable means for the next generation of self-sustainable coatings.

Enzyme-based systems represent a user- and environmentally-friendly alternative to current corrosive and/or toxic decontamination technologies used for microbial decontamination. Herein an easily deployable enzyme-nanosupport hybrid system was developed for in situ generation of hypochlorous acid (HOCl), a strong decontaminant. The user-controlled strategy allowed co-immobilization of two different enzymes at a nanosupport interface and decontaminant generation through a chain reaction. For this, glucose oxidase was used as the working enzyme and co-immobilized onto multi-walled carbon nanotubes along with chloroperoxidase. Our hypothesis was that hydrogen peroxide produced at the nanosupport interface through the glucose oxidase enzymatic reaction can further be used as substrate by the co-immobilized CPO to convert (Cl−) into HOCl. The chemistry of the immobilization method, as well as the enzyme loading, activity, kinetics and enzyme stability at the nanointerface were evaluated. The multi-enzyme system was found to be able to initiate and propagate the chain reaction resulting in decontaminant production. The strong capability of HOCl generation can be viewed as an important first step toward creating self-sustainable microbial decontamination coatings to be used against various pathogens such as bacteria and spores.