Abstract
Carbon dots (CDs), a nanomaterial synthesized from organic precursors rich in carbon content with excellent fluorescent property, are in high demand for many purposes, including sensing and biosensing applications. This research focused on preparing CDs from natural and abundant waste, palm kernel shells (PKS) obtained from palm oil biomass, aiming for sensing and biosensing applications. Ethylenediamine and L-phenylalanine doped CDs were produced via the hydrothermal and solvothermal methods using one-pot synthesis techniques in an autoclave batch reactor. The as-prepared N-CDs shows excellent photoluminescence (PL) property and a quantum yield (QY) of 13.7% for ethylenediamine (EDA) doped N-CDs (CDs-EDA) and 8.6% for L-phenylalanine (L-Ph) doped N-CDs (CDs-LPh) with an excitation/emission wavelength of 360 nm/450 nm. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images show the N-CDs have an average particle size of 2 nm for both CDs. UV-Visible spectrophotometric results showed C=C and C=O transition. FTIR results show and confirm the presence of functional groups, such as -OH, -C=O, -NH2 on the N-CDs, and the X-ray diffraction pattern showed that the N-CDs were crystalline, depicted with sharp peaks. This research work demonstrated that palm kernel shell biomass often thrown away as waste can produce CDs with excellent physicochemical properties.
Highlights
Carbon dots (CDs) are a nanomaterial synthesized from organic precursors discovered by the Xu research group in 2004 when they were purifying single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) [1,2,3]
Unlike semiconductor-based quantum dots (QDs) and some conventional organic dyes with similar properties, they are characterized by an inherent low water solubility and toxicity issues [6]
The result agrees with other research groups [42,56]. Their analysis shows that the obtained char was about 30%, the char results from the thermal decomposition of cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose in the palm kernel shell (PKS) precursor
Summary
Carbon dots (CDs) are a nanomaterial synthesized from organic precursors discovered by the Xu research group in 2004 when they were purifying single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) [1,2,3]. CDs are in high demand and have caught researchers’ keen interest because of their peculiarly low toxicity, suitable photoluminescence property, excellent water-solubility, dispersibility, broad range emission spectrum, biocompatibility, and high resistance to photobleaching. Like other carbon families, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), fullerene, graphene nanosheets (GNS) carbon quantum dots (CQDs), and graphene quantum dots (GQDs), it is a material that shows both amorphous or crystalline zero-dimensional carbonaceous properties, or is based on the composition of precursors with sizes smaller than 10 nm.
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