High-Efficiency Utilization of Waste Tobacco Stems to Synthesize Novel Biomass-Based Carbon Dots for Precise Detection of Tetracycline Antibiotic Residues

Abstract

Recycling waste biomass into valuable products (e.g., nanomaterials) is of considerable theoretical and practical significance to achieve future sustainable development. Here, we propose a one-pot hydrothermal synthesis route to convert waste tobacco stems into biomass-based N, S-codoped carbon dots (C−dots) with the assistance of carbon black. Unlike most of the previously reported luminescent C−dots, these biomass-based C−dots showed a satisfactory stability, as well as an excitation-independent fluorescence emission at ~520 nm. Furthermore, they demonstrated a pH-dependent fluorescence emission ability, offering a scaffold to design pH-responsive assays. Moreover, these as-synthesized biomass-based C−dots exhibited a fluorescence response ability toward tetracycline antibiotics (TCs, e.g., TC, CTC, and OTC) through the inner filter effect (IFE), thereby allowing for the establishment a smart analytical platform to sensitively and selectively monitor residual TCs in real environmental water samples. In this study, we explored the conversion of waste tobacco stems into sustainable biomass-based C−dots to develop simple, efficient, label-free, reliable, low-cost, and eco-friendly analytical platforms for environmental pollution traceability analysis, which might provide a novel insight to resolve the ecological and environmental issues derived from waste tobacco stems.