Studies on the Biocompatibility of Carbon Dots Prepared by Utilizing Aquatic Waste

Abstract

Carbon dots (CDs) are a kind of novel carbon nanomaterial that has unique properties, which make them useful for various applications, and now newer types of CDs are being found. Herein, a series of easy, cost-effective, environmentally friendly and highly biocompatible one-step syntheses of fluorescent CDs were fabricated by reacting easily available aquatic waste used as the carbon source, using hydrothermal reaction. The rapid development of nanomaterials has provided unprecedented opportunities for various applications, and CDs have been widely used in pharmaceutical analysis, environmental monitoring, clinical diagnosis, medical imaging technologies and cancer treatment. Good biocompatibility is a prerequisite for the application of nanomaterials in biology, chemistry, medicine and other fields. This paper presents a systematic study of the biocompatibility and biosafety issues of the three as-synthesized CDs, including primary investigations of their cytotoxicity, cell morphology, plant imaging, apoptosis analysis and effects on embryos in zebrafish embryos. The aim of this research is to make a profound study on the biocompatibility of carbon dots and explore the application of CDs in the field of biological imaging.