Chapter 22 - Carbon dots in food analysis

Abstract

In current years, as a new class of auspicious fluorescent carbon nanomaterials, carbon dots (CDs) have been well studied due to their exceptional physical and optical properties, good biocompatibility, and different sensing applications, which can be predicted to substitute the fluorescence semiquantum dots. Detection based on fluorescence CDs is typically depended on the changes in intensity of a single fluorescent emission center, which is due to variation in the concentration of probe, and irregular distribution is the often susceptible to interference. This chapter aims to present the recent progress in CDs-based fluorescence sensor for application in food safety analysis. For risk assessment exist with human health and safety, a rapid and accurate detection of food quality is essential. Application of CDs as a fluorescence sensor in food safety analysis is described, which includes the rapid determination of pesticides, veterinary drug, metal ion, and hazards in food contamination. Even though CDs-based sensors reported in the literature for many applications in food safety, it is still a big task to analyze a specific analyte in complex samples. Hence, to design novel sensor against the specific target with high selectivity and binding affinity, it is greatly important to combine with other biochemistry technology to construct sensitive and specific sensors in the future.