Highly sensitive and selective fluorescence sensing and imaging of Fe3+ based on a novel nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots.

Abstract

A novel nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQDs) with a green fluorescence emission was synthesized through microwave method using citric acid and semicarbazide hydrochloride as reactants. The as-synthesized N-GQDs exhibited good stability, excellent water solubility, and negligible cytotoxicity. Due to intermolecular charge transfer, ferric ion (Fe3+ ) has a strong quenching effect on the N-GQDs. Fluorescence quenching has a linear relationship with the Fe3+ concentration in the range 0.02-12 μM. The detection limit was 1.43 nM. What is more, it is worth mentioning that the obtained N-GQDs showed high selectivity and sensitivity towards Fe3+ . Under the optimum conditions, the addition of 10-fold copper ions and 100-fold other metal ions had no influence on the detection of Fe3+ (0.8 μM), which indicated a higher sensitivity compared with that of the reported methods. Due to their excellent properties, the obtained N-GQDs was successfully applied for sensing and imaging Fe3+ in water samples and HeLa cells.