Spectrofluorimetric Determination of Hydrochlorothiazide by a Carbon Dots-Based Probe via Inner Filtering Effect and Resonance Rayleigh Scattering

Abstract

Synthesis of carbon dots (CDs) from natural resources not only enables green synthesis and production of environmentally friendly materials, but also provides a cost-effective probe as a fluorescence nanosensor. The proposed sensor introduces a unique one-pot hydrothermal CDs synthesis from alfalfa leaves, which is promising for sensing hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) via inner filter effect (IFE) and resonance Rayleigh scattering (RRS). The as-prepared CDs had wide emission spectra, excitation-dependent emission, high solubility, high stability, and visible fluorescence light with a quantum yield of up to 11%. The absorption of HCTZ overlapped with the excitation spectra of CDs. Therefore, CDs represented excellent quenching due to IFE when HCTZ was gradually added. Furthermore, this fluorescent sensor was successfully used to quantify HCTZ in the linear ranges (0.17-2.50 μg mL-1) with the limit of detection of 0.11 μg mL-1. The sensing system was simple as no surface functionalization was required for CDs, leading to less laborious steps and more cost-effective synthesis. The reaction time was short, i.e., less than 2 min, indicating a simple approach for rapid analysis of HCTZ. By optimizing conditions, successful measurements were carried out on pharmaceutical tablets.