Aluminum-doped carbon dots for the simultaneous selective detection of five tetracycline antibiotics

Abstract

In this paper, the aluminum-doped carbon dots (Al-CDs) were developed for simultaneous selective detection of five tetracycline antibiotics (TCs), including minocycline (MC), tetracycline (TC), oxytetracycline (OTC), doxycycline (DOC) and chlortetracycline (CTC). With the bright blue fluorescence, Al-CDs displayed excellent stability and showed no obvious fluorescence intensity changes under different ionic strength, acidic or alkaline environment, continuous ultraviolet light illumination, and even longtime storage at room temperature. As adding different antibiotics, the fluorescence of Al-CDs was strongly quenched by five TCs and showed no distinguished changes with the addition of other kinds of antibiotics. The presence of interferential metal ions, anions and small organic molecules imposed no effect on the simultaneous selective detection of five TCs. A good linear relationship was achieved for five TCs in the range of 0-100 µM, and the limit of detection (LOD) for MC, TC, OTC, DOC, and CTC were 12.70, 14.58, 14.35, 13.48 and 13.92 nM, respectively. Moreover, Al-CDs was successfully used to the detection of three TCs in real samples with recovery ranging from 92.47–122.05%, confirming a bright future for the practical applications in the assays of foods, medicines, and environments.