Abstract
This work systematically compares both structural features and photocatalytic performance of a series of graphitic and amorphous carbon dots (CDs) prepared in a bottom-up manner from fructose, glucose, and citric acid. We demonstrate that the carbon source and synthetic procedures diversely affect the structural and optical properties of the CDs, which in turn unpredictably influence their photo electron transfer ability. The latter was evaluated by studying the photo-reduction of methyl viologen. Overall, citric acid-CDs were found to provide the best photocatalytic performance followed by fructose- and glucose-CDs. However, while the graphitization of glucose- and citric acid-CDs favored the photo-reaction, a reverse structure–activity dependence was observed for fructose-CDs due to the formation of a large graphitic-like supramolecular assembly. This study highlights the complexity to design in advance photo-active bio-based carbon nanomaterials.
Highlights
Fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) have drawn considerable attention in a wide range of applications ranging from the biomedical [1,2,3,4,5] to energy-related [6,7] fields
The photocatalytic properties of monosaccharide-derived CDs were tested in the single electron transfer reaction towards MV2+
We demonstrate how the choice of the carbon precursors and its morphology can significantly influence the photo-redox behavior of the resulting materials
Summary
Fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) have drawn considerable attention in a wide range of applications ranging from the biomedical [1,2,3,4,5] to energy-related [6,7] fields. In connection to the wide-ranging interests of our group in developing biomass-derived platform chemicals [21,22,23,24,25,26], we recently reported a fundamental study on the photoreduction of methyl viologen using a set of citric acid-derived CDs, paving the way towards the rational design of carbon-nanoparticles for efficient photocatalytic organic transformations [27]. These studies demonstrated that the carbon–nitrogen source, the synthetic method, and the resulting structural properties strongly affect the electrochemical properties of CDs and their photo-reactivity. We hereby demonstrate that the carbon source, as well as the synthetic methodologies employed, strongly affect structural and optical properties of the CDs, resulting in different photocatalytic activities
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