Skip to main content
Log in

Development of a highly sensitive fluorescence method for tartrazine determination in food matrices based on carbon dots

  • Research Paper
  • Published:
Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

A Correction to this article was published on 12 February 2021

This article has been updated

Abstract

In this work, an ultrasensitive sensing system based on fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) was developed for the tartrazine (Tar) determination. The CDs were prepared via a simple one-pot hydrothermal method with m-phenylenediamine as the only precursor. The physical and chemical properties were in detail characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), MALDI-TOF MS, UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, elemental analysis, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Upon exposure to Tar, the fluorescence of CDs was efficiently quenched via the dynamic interaction between CDs and Tar as well as the inner filter effect (IFE). With this information, the CDs were proposed as a fluorescence probe for Tar detection. It was found that CDs had high sensitivity and selectivity for Tar sensing, and the linear relationship was observed in the range of 0.01–25.0 μM with the corresponding detection limit (3σ/k) of 12.4 nM, which is much more sensitive than any of the existed CD-based sensing platform. The investigated sensing system was finally utilized for Tar sensing in various food matrices with a high degree of accuracy. The spiked recoveries were in a range of 96.4–105.2%, and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) were lower than 4.13%. This work highlights the great application prospects of CDs for Tar sensing in a rapid, simple, and sensitive way.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Scheme 1
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Change history

References

  1. Karimi MA, Aghaei VH, Nezhadali A, Ajami N. Graphitic carbon nitride as a new sensitive material for electrochemical determination of trace amounts of tartrazine in food samples. Food Anal Methods. 2018;11(10):2907–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Baytak AK, Akbaş E, Aslanoglu M. A novel voltammetric platform based on dysprosium oxide for the sensitive determination of sunset yellow in the presence of tartrazine. Anal Chim Acta. 2019;1087:93–103.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Sakthivel M, Sivakumar M, Chen S-M, Pandi K. Electrochemical synthesis of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) on terbium hexacyanoferrate for sensitive determination of tartrazine. Sensors Actuators B. 2018;256:195–203.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Dorraji PS, Jalali F. Electrochemical fabrication of a novel ZnO/cysteic acid nanocomposite modified electrode and its application to simultaneous determination of sunset yellow and tartrazine. Food Chem. 2018;227:73–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Sahraei R, Farmany A, Mortazavi SS. A nanosilver-based spectrophotometry method for sensitive determination of tartrazine in food samples. Food Chem. 2013;138(2):1239–42.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Kim HJ, Lee MJ, Park HJ, Kim HJ, Cho SK, Jeong MH. Simultaneous determination of synthetic food additives in kimchi by liquid chromatography-electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. Food Sci Biotechnol. 2018;27(3):877–82.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Yi J, Zeng L, Wu Q, Yang L, Xie T. Sensitive simultaneous determination of synthetic food colorants in preserved fruit samples by capillary electrophoresis with contactless conductivity detection. Food Anal Methods. 2018;11(6):1608–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Soponar F, Moţ AC, Sârbu C. Quantitative determination of some food dyes using digital processing of images obtained by thin-layer chromatography. J Chromatogr A. 2008;1188(2):295–300.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Nambiar AP, Sanyal M, Shrivastav PS. Simultaneous densitometric determination of eight food colors and four sweeteners in candies, jellies, beverages and pharmaceuticals by normal-phase high performance thin-layer chromatography using a single elution protocol. J Chromatogr A. 2018;1572:152–61.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Culzoni MJ, Schenone AV, Llamas NE, Garrido M, Di Nezio MS, Fernández Band BS, et al. Fast chromatographic method for the determination of dyes in beverages by using high performance liquid chromatography—diode array detection data and second order algorithms. J Chromatogr A. 2009;1216(42):7063–70.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Yıldırım S, Yaşar A. A core-shell column approach to fast determination of synthetic dyes in foodstuffs by high-performance liquid chromatography. Food Anal Methods. 2018;11(6):1581–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Baker SN, Baker GA. Luminescent carbon nanodots: emergent nanolights. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2010;49(38):6726–44.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Sun D, Ban R, Zhang P-H, Wu G-H, Zhang J-R, Zhu J-J. Hair fiber as a precursor for synthesizing of sulfur- and nitrogen-co-doped carbon dots with tunable luminescence properties. Carbon. 2013;64:424–34.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Hu Q, Liu L-F, Sun H, Han J, Gong X, Liu L, et al. An ultra-selective fluorescence method with enhanced sensitivity for the determination of manganese (VII) in food stuffs using carbon quantum dots as nanoprobe. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. 2020;88:103447.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Liu Y, Gong X, Dong W, Zhou R, Shuang S, Dong C. Nitrogen and phosphorus dual-doped carbon dots as a label-free sensor for curcumin determination in real sample and cellular imaging. Talanta. 2018;183:61–9.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Bian W, Wang X, Wang Y, Yang H, Huang J, Cai Z, et al. Boron and nitrogen co-doped carbon dots as a sensitive fluorescent probe for the detection of curcumin. Luminescence. 2018;33(1):174–80.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Hu Q, Sun H, Zhou X, Gong X, Xiao L, Liu L, et al. Bright-yellow-emissive nitrogen-doped carbon nanodots as a fluorescent nanoprobe for the straightforward detection of glutathione in food samples. Food Chem. 2020;325:126946.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Yue X, Zhou Z, Wu Y, Jie M, Li Y, Guo H, et al. A green carbon dots-based fluorescent sensor for selective and visual detection of nitrite triggered by the nitrite–thiol reaction. New J Chem. 2020;44(20):8503–11.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Jia J, Lu W, Li L, Gao Y, Jiao Y, Han H, et al. Orange-emitting N-doped carbon dots as fluorescent and colorimetric dual-mode probes for nitrite detection and cellular imaging. J Mater Chem B. 2020;8(10):2123–7.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Gogoi J, Chowdhury D. Calcium-modified carbon dots derived from polyethylene glycol: fluorescence-based detection of trifluralin herbicide. J Mater Sci. 2020;55(25):11597–608.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Bera MK, Mohapatra S. Ultrasensitive detection of glyphosate through effective photoelectron transfer between CdTe and chitosan derived carbon dot. Colloids and Surfaces A. 2020;596:124710.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Chatzimitakos T, Kasouni A, Sygellou L, Avgeropoulos A, Troganis A, Stalikas C. Two of a kind but different: luminescent carbon quantum dots from citrus peels for iron and tartrazine sensing and cell imaging. Talanta. 2017;175:305–12.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Xu H, Yang X, Li G, Zhao C, Liao X. Green synthesis of fluorescent carbon dots for selective detection of tartrazine in food samples. J Agric Food Chem. 2015;63(30):6707–14.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Thulasi S, Kathiravan A, Asha Jhonsi M. Fluorescent carbon dots derived from vehicle exhaust soot and sensing of tartrazine in soft drinks. ACS Omega. 2020;5(12):7025–31.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Jiang K, Sun S, Zhang L, Lu Y, Wu A, Cai C, et al. Red, green, and blue luminescence by carbon dots: full-color emission tuning and multicolor cellular imaging. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015;54(18):5360–3.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Shang J, Ma L, Li J, Ai W, Yu T, Gurzadyan GG. The origin of fluorescence from graphene oxide. Sci Rep. 2012;2:792.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Tang L, Ji R, Cao X, Lin J, Jiang H, Li X, et al. Deep ultraviolet photoluminescence of water-soluble self-passivated graphene quantum dots. ACS Nano. 2012;6(6):5102–10.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Li Y, Jia Y, Zeng Q, Jiang X, Cheng Z. A multifunctional sensor for selective and sensitive detection of vitamin B12 and tartrazine by Förster resonance energy transfer. Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2019;211:178–88.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Yang X, Xu J, Luo N, Tang F, Zhang M, Zhao B. N,Cl co-doped fluorescent carbon dots as nanoprobe for detection of tartrazine in beverages. Food Chem. 2020;310:125832.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

The financial supports from 2020 Postgraduate Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, China (SJCX20_1383), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (BK20200949), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M671625), National Natural Science Foundation of China (21922202), Natural Science Fund for Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province, China (19KJB150042, 20KJA550002), Opening Foundation of Jiangsu Dairy Bioengineering Technology Research Centre (KYRY2019002), Yangzhou Key R&D Project (Social Development), China (2020) (YZ2020063), LvYang Golden Phoenix Plan, Yangzhou City (2019), Jiangsu Key Research & Development Program, China (BE2019436-5), Yangzhou University Science and Technology Innovation Cultivation Fund (2019CXJ188), and Foundation of China National Key Research & Development Program (2016YFC1300201) are received.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Lixia Xiao or Qin Hu.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The original online version of this article was revised: The authors would like to call the reader’s attention to the fact that, unfortunately, there was an error regarding Fig. 1b in this manuscript.

Supplementary Information

ESM 1

(PDF 661 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Liu, L., Sun, H., Xiao, L. et al. Development of a highly sensitive fluorescence method for tartrazine determination in food matrices based on carbon dots. Anal Bioanal Chem 413, 1485–1492 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-03118-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-020-03118-1

Keywords

Navigation