Synthesis of Nitrogen and Sulfur Co-doped Carbon Dots from Garlic for Selective Detection of Fe(3.).

Chun Sun,Yiding Wang,Jian Xu,Yu Zhang,Yue Yang,Peng Wang,William W Yu,Yu Wang

doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1326-8

Abstract

Garlic was used as a green source to synthesize carbon dots (CDs) with a systematic study of the optical and structure properties. Ethylenediamine was added into the synthesis to improve the photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) of the CDs. Detailed structural and composition studies demonstrated that the content of N and the formation of C–N and C=N were critical to improve the PL QY. The as-synthesized CDs exhibited excellent stability in a wide pH range and high NaCl concentrations, rendering them applicable in complicated and harsh conditions. Quenching the fluorescence of the CDs in the presence of Fe3+ ion made these CDs a luminescent probe for selective detection of Fe3+ ion.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-016-1326-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Fluorescent materials have drawn considerable attention owing to their potential applications in a variety of fields, such as bioimaging, optoelectronic devices, and sensing [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
We report a green synthetic method for N and S co-doped carbon dots (CDs) from garlic by a one-step hydrothermal synthesis
Garlic is a natural world-wide edible condiment which is abundant in carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen elements and was used here as carbon source to synthesize the N- and S-doped CDs by a one-step hydrothermal treatment

Summary

Introduction

Fluorescent materials have drawn considerable attention owing to their potential applications in a variety of fields, such as bioimaging, optoelectronic devices, and sensing [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have become one of the most promising nanomaterials due to their high photostability, large molar extinction coefficients [8, 9], high photoluminescence quantum yields (PL QYs), and size-tunable emission [10]. These popular QDs have raised concerns over serious toxicity and environmental hazard [11]. Various methods have been applied to make these luminescent QDs water-soluble, such as surface passivation with hydrophilic protective layers [12,13,14] and water-phase synthesis. These protocols are compromised at the expense of reducing the PL QYs and the time-consuming, complicated, expensive processes [15]

Methods

Results

Conclusion