Facile and eco-friendly synthesis of green fluorescent carbon nanodots for applications in bioimaging, patterning and staining

Abstract

We report a facile and eco-friendly strategy for the fabrication of green fluorescent carbon nanodots (CDs), and demonstrate their applications for bio-imaging, patterning, and staining. A one-pot hydrothermal method using various plant petals yields bright green-emitting CDs, providing an easy way for the production of green fluorescent CDs without the need for a tedious synthetic methodology or the use of toxic/expensive solvents and starting materials. The as-prepared CDs show small size distribution and excellent dispersibility. Their strong green fluorescence is observed when the excitation wavelength is between 430 nm and 490 nm. Moreover, they exhibit high tolerance to various external conditions, such as pH values, external cations, and continuous excitation. Due to minimum toxicity as well as good photoluminescence properties, these CDs can be applied to in vitro and in vivo imaging, patterning, and staining. According to confocal fluorescence imaging of human uterine cervical squamous cell carcinoma cells, CDs penetrate into the cell and enter the cytoplasm and the nucleus. More strikingly, carp is directly fed with CDs for in vivo imaging and shows bright green fluorescence at an excitation wavelength of 470 nm. In addition, the obtained CDs are used as fluorescent inks for drawing luminescence patterns. Finally, we also apply the CDs as a fluorescent dye. Interestingly, the absorbent filter paper with staining emits dramatic fluorescence under 470 nm excitation.

A carbon dots based fluorescent probe for selective and sensitive detection of hemoglobin

“…Compared with some conventional semiconductor quantum dots with heavy metal cores, CDs are superior in terms of low cytotoxicity, excellent aqueous solubility, good biocompatibility, broader photoluminescence profiles, and high photostability [4,5]. More attentions have been paid to CDs, including their synthesis and biochemical applications [6][7][8]. Recent studies based on the fluorescence variation of CDs in the detection process, CDs have been utilized to monitor many substances, such as Cu 2+ , Fe 3+ , methylmercury, and thrombin [9][10][11][12].…”

Fluorescent Carbon‐ and Oxygen‐Doped Hexagonal Boron Nitride Powders as Printing Ink for Anticounterfeit Applications

“…It is still challenging to prepare luminescent materials with well‐controlled emission properties. Moreover, toxic elements used for fabrication of many anticounterfeit applications, such as lead and cadmium, as well as the high cost associated with rare‐earth elements have hindered their applications . It is therefore necessary to develop environmentally friendly, low cost, and easily accessible luminescent materials with tunable excitations/emissions.…”

Laser-driven direct synthesis of carbon nanodots and application as sensitizers for visible-light photocatalysis

“…Luminescent carbon-based nanostructures such as graphene dots, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or carbon nanodots (CNDs) have attracted much attention in recent years on account of their outstanding optical properties and potential applications [1][2][3][4][5]. Broad range optical response is strongly desirable in applications such as bioimaging, sensing, solar cells and theranostics [2,4,[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Furthermore, their use as photosensitizers to expand the photocatalytic response of semiconductors beyond the UV range has also attracted a great attention in photocatalysis in the Advanced Oxidation Process (AOP) of organic pollutants present in wastewaters [2,4,11,.…”