Preparation of two types of silver-doped fluorescent carbon dots and determination of their antibacterial properties

Abstract

The preparation and performance of doped antibacterial carbon dots (CDs) have been the research hotspot. In this paper, we report the preparation of two blue light-emitting silver-doped CDs, CD-1 and CD-2, through one- and two-step routes, respectively, by using polyethyleneimine, citric acid, and AgNO3 as raw materials. Both CDs exhibited excellent and broad-spectrum activity against gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, and fungi. We compared the emission wavelength, surface group, particle size, chargeability, and element content of the two CDs through various characterization methods. CD-2 exhibiting longer emission wavelength, larger particle size, and higher silver content displayed higher antibacterial activity against microorganisms than CD-1. On the other hand, CDs exhibited varying antibacterial properties against different microorganisms because of differences in the cell wall structure of gram-positive bacteria (peptidoglycan), gram-negative bacteria (lipopolysaccharides), and fungi (chitin). Based on scanning electron microscopy observations, circular dichroism spectroscopy and agarose gel electrophoresis, we speculate that CDs exert antibacterial activity mainly through membrane disruption and their effect on intracellular DNA and proteins. At the same time, CDs have multicolor imaging capabilities of Staphylococcus aureus. The antibacterial activity and versatility of bioimaging make them more potential antibacterial agents than traditional agents.