Abstract
Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) with stable physicochemical properties are one of the emerging carbon nanomaterials that have been studied in recent years. In addition to the excellent optical properties such as photoluminescence, photobleaching resistance and light stability, this material also has favorable advantages of good biocompatibility and easy functionalization, which make it an ideal raw material for constructing sensing equipment. In addition, CQDs can combined with other kinds of materials to form the nanostructured composites with unique properties, which provides new insights and ideas for the research of many fields. In the field of food analysis, emerging CQDs have been deeply studied in food composition analysis, detection and monitoring trace harmful substances and made remarkable research progress. This article introduces and compares the various methods for CQDs preparation and reviews its related sensing applications as a new material in food components analysis and food safety inspection in recent years. It is expected to provide a significant guidance for the further study of CQDs in the field of food analysis and detection.
Highlights
Carbon quantum dots (CQDs), called carbon dots (CDs), were a kind of zero-dimensional nanomaterial with size less than 10 nm, which were first discovered in 2004 [1,2,3]
According to the different carbon cores, CQDs are usually divided into graphene quantum dots (GQDs), carbon nanodots (CNDs) and polymer dots (PDs) [14]
As a new type of carbon-based nanomaterials, CQDs has the characteristics of excellent fluorescent, good biocompatibility, low toxicity and cheap manufacturing, which has attracted more and more researchers’ interest and becomes a research hot spot
Summary
Carbon quantum dots (CQDs), called carbon dots (CDs), were a kind of zero-dimensional nanomaterial with size less than 10 nm, which were first discovered in 2004 [1,2,3]. The instrumental detection strategies based on the principles of chromatography and mass spectrometry such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) are highly efficient and accurate, which can almost cover the analysis and detection of multifarious targets including functional components, the residues of pesticides and veterinary drugs, heavy metal ions, mycotoxins, illegal additives and so forth [22,23,24] This kind of methods usually requires relatively expensive large-scale analytical instruments and complicated sample preparation processes, having a gap in detection speed, real-time and on-site analysis. This paper has reviewed the different methods of CQDs preparation and the existing research findings of recent five years in the field of food analysis in order to explore the applicability and practical value of CQDs as a new nanomaterial in fluorescent sensing and biomimetic analysis, providing relevant references for further research in the field of food analysis
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