Abstract
Nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (N-CQDs) with strong fluorescence were prepared by a one-step hydrothermal method using natural biomass waste. Two efficient fluorescent probes were constructed for selective and sensitive detection of oxytetracycline (OTC). The synthesized N-CQDs were characterized by UV-visible absorption spectra, fluorescence spectra, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), which proved that the synthesized N-CQDs surface were functionalized and had stable fluorescence performance. The basis of N-CQDs detection of OTC was discussed, and various reaction conditions were studied. Under optimized conditions, orange peel carbon quantum dots (ON-CQDs) and watermelon peel carbon quantum dots (WN-CQDs) have a good linear relationship with OTC concentrations in the range of 2–100 µmol L−1 and 0.25–100 µmol L−1, respectively. ON-CQDs and WN-CQDs were both successfully applied in detecting the OTC in pretreated tap water, lake water, and soil, with the recovery rate at 91.724–103.206%, and the relative standard deviation was less than 5.35%. The results showed that the proposed N-CQDs proved to be green and simple, greatly reducing the detection time for OTC in the determination environment.
Highlights
Antibiotics are natural, synthetic, or semisynthetic compounds that interfere with the development of other living cells [1]
The size and morphology of the synthesized Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) were analyzed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM)
HRTEM images of orange peel carbon quantum dots (ON-CQDs) and watermelon peel carbon quantum dots (WN-CQDs) were shown in Figure 1a and c, respectively, indicating that ON-CQDs lattice spacing was 0.206 nm and WN-CQDs lattice spacing was 0.208 nm, which was consistent with the (100) plane spacing of sp2 carbon [56,57,58]
Summary
Antibiotics are natural, synthetic, or semisynthetic compounds that interfere with the development of other living cells [1]. Previous studies have shown that the OTC median in raw sludge was higher than 10 μg kg−1 dry matter [6], and the highest TC concentration detected in agricultural soils was 0.6 mg kg−1 [7,8]. The comparisons in animal excrement data showed that OTC was consistently the highest average compound [10]. While the soil is an important reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment, resistance genes can be transferred to groundwater or lakes by leaching [12,13]. It was very necessary to detect antibiotics in the environment, which can effectively identify the residual concentration of antibiotics, improve the detection efficiency, and shorten the detection time, indirectly accelerating the pollution prevention and control process
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