Water Soluble Fluorescent Carbon Nanodots from Biosource for Cells Imaging

Kumud Malika Tripathi,Taeyoung Kim,Tuan Sang Tran,Dusan Losic,Tran Thanh Tung

doi:10.1155/2017/7029731

Kumud Malika Tripathi, Taeyoung Kim + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/7029731

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Abstract

Carbon nanodots (CNDs) derived from a green precursor, kidney beans, was synthesized with high yield via a facile pyrolysis technique. The CND material was easily modified through simple oxidative treatment with nitric acid, leading to a high density “self-passivated” water soluble form (wsCNDs). The synthesized wsCNDs have been extensively characterized by using various microscopic and spectroscopic techniques and were crystalline in nature. The highly carboxylated wsCNDs possessed tunable-photoluminescence emission behavior throughout the visible region of the spectrum, demonstrating their application for multicolor cellular imaging of HeLa cells. The tunable-photoluminescence properties of “self-passivated” wsCNDs make them a promising candidate as a probe in biological cell-imaging applications.

Highlights

Carbon nanodots (CNDs) are emerging as new class of carbon-based fluorescent nanomaterial for their substantial applications in wide areas, owing to numerous alluring properties [1, 2], which include environmental friendliness, favorable biocompatibility, excellent chemical stability, broad excitation spectra, resistance to photo-bleaching, and ease of surface modification [2]
CNDs were effectively synthesized via pyrolysis of kidney bean as green precursor
This inhomogeneous size may be attributed to the tunable multicolor fluorescence of the water soluble carbon nanodots (wsCNDs) due to the quantum-confinement effect and characteristics for spherical nanocarbons [30]

Summary

Introduction

Carbon nanodots (CNDs) are emerging as new class of carbon-based fluorescent nanomaterial for their substantial applications in wide areas, owing to numerous alluring properties [1, 2], which include environmental friendliness, favorable biocompatibility, excellent chemical stability, broad excitation spectra, resistance to photo-bleaching, and ease of surface modification [2]. Defects, and surface functionalities govern the properties of CNDs, which strongly depends upon the precursor material and synthetic conditions [21]. CNDs synthesized by using biomass as natural carbon precursors have been attracting tremendous interest in bioimaging and biomedical applications owing to their excellent biocompatibility. Oxidation of carbon soot introduces aqueous solubility and strong fluorescence emissions through the visible region of spectrum Such synthesized wsCNDs are in the range of 10–30 nm in particle size with good aqueous solubility, stability in solution, and high photostability. The tunable emissive properties and fine aqueous solubility of these wsCNDs will hold promising advancements in biological imaging and constructing biosensors from an economic viewpoint

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusions