Continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis of blue-luminescent, excitation-independent nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots as nanosensors

Baragau, Ioan-Alexandru, Power, Nicholas P., Morgan, David J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6571-5731, Heil, Tobias, Lobo, Richard Alvarez, Roberts, Christopher Simon, Titirici, Maria-Madgalena, Dunn, Steven and Kellici, Suela 2020. Continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis of blue-luminescent, excitation-independent nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots as nanosensors. Journal of Materials Chemistry A 8 (6) , pp. 3270-3279. 10.1039/C9TA11781D

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Abstract

Blue-luminescent N-doped carbon quantum dots (NCQDs) exhibiting rarely observed excitation independent optical properties are synthesised from citric acid in the presence of ammonia via a Continuous Hydrothermal Flow Synthesis (CHFS) approach. CHFS is an eco-friendly, rapid synthetic approach (within fractions of a second) facilitating ease of scale-up industrialization as well as offering materials with superior properties. The synthesised NCQDs readily disperse in aqueous solution, have an average particle size of 3.3 ± 0.7 nm, with highest emission intensity at 441 nm (and a narrow full width at half maximum, FWHM ∼78 nm) under a 360 nm excitation wavelength. N-doped carbon quantum dots, without any further modification, exhibited a high selectivity and sensitivity as a nano-sensor for the highly toxic and carcinogenic chromium(VI) ions. The nano-chemo-sensor delivers significant advantages including simplicity of manufacturing via a continuous, cleaner technology (using targeted biomass precursor), high selectivity, sensitivity and fast response leading to potential applications in environmental industry as well photovoltaics, bio-tagging, bio-sensing and beyond.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Chemistry Cardiff Catalysis Institute (CCI)
Publisher:	Royal Society of Chemistry
ISSN:	2050-7488
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 March 2020
Date of Acceptance:	10 January 2020
Last Modified:	18 Nov 2024 05:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/130450

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