Issue 35, 2014

Green synthesis of fluorescent nitrogen/sulfur-doped carbon dots and investigation of their properties by HPLC coupled with mass spectrometry

Abstract

A fast and green approach to synthesise ultrasmall nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S)-doped carbon dots (N,S-C-dots) by microwave-assisted pyrolysis of the precursors rice as carbon source and N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) as N and S dopant has been developed. The obtained N,S-C-dots were fully characterised by elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV-vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The undoped C-dots (derived from rice only) and N,S-C-dots possess different chemical compositions, sizes and spectral properties. With the assistance of high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD), the effect of different mass ratios of NAC to rice (NAC/rice) on N,S-C-dots was investigated. Higher NAC/rice ratio benefits the generation of N,S-C-dots with stronger fluorescence emission. In addition, the HPLC separated N,S-C-dots fractions were collected and further characterised by mass spectrometry, UV-vis absorption and PL spectroscopy, showing that the structural changes induced by doping with heteroatoms N and S plays a key role in regulating the PL properties of the N,S-C-dots. This work highlights the merits of synthesising N,S-C-dots from readily available natural bioresources and applying modern HPLC-FD technology to study the effect of doped heteroatoms on N,S-C-dots properties.

Graphical abstract: Green synthesis of fluorescent nitrogen/sulfur-doped carbon dots and investigation of their properties by HPLC coupled with mass spectrometry

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
12 Mar 2014
Accepted
05 Apr 2014
First published
07 Apr 2014

RSC Adv., 2014,4, 18065-18073

Author version available

Green synthesis of fluorescent nitrogen/sulfur-doped carbon dots and investigation of their properties by HPLC coupled with mass spectrometry

Q. Hu, M. C. Paau, Y. Zhang, X. Gong, L. Zhang, D. Lu, Y. Liu, Q. Liu, J. Yao and M. M. F. Choi, RSC Adv., 2014, 4, 18065 DOI: 10.1039/C4RA02170C

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