Highly Efficient N-Doped Carbon Quantum Dots for Detection of Hg2+ and Cd2+ ions in Dendrobium huoshanense
Jun Dai, Peipei Wei, Yujuan Wang
Abstract
The addition of heteroatoms changes the structure and optical properties of carbon quantum dots (CQDs). In the paper, nitrogen (N)-doped CQDs are prepared via one-step hydrothermal method from Auricularia auricular and ethylenediamine. Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) analysis reveals that the average size of carbon quantum dots is 5±2 nm, whereas the chemical study shows the existence of C-N bond. The produced N-doped CQDs have fluorescence quantum yields of 28.4%. Moreover, the prepared CQDs showed high sensitivity and accuracy and had a good proportional band of 0-50 μM for detection Hg 2+ (R 2 =0.9919) and Cd 2+ (R 2 =0.9964). The low detection limits were 77.21 nM and 101.55 nM for Hg 2+ and Cd 2+ , respectively. The CQDs was triumphantly used to track metal ions in environmental samples. So, it was a promising method for environmental pollutant detection.