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One-pot synthesis of sustainable carbon dots for analytical and cytotoxicity studies

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Abstract

Heavy metals are one of the most significant pollutants which cause severe health and environmental hazards. This work reports a green, cost-effective, and one-pot hydrothermal synthesis method for the preparation of fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) for the sensing of metal ions. For the first time in this research, Naregamia alata was used as a carbon source for the preparation of carbon dots. The optical, morphological, and chemical features of the CDs were studied by different characterization techniques. The CDs are stable in different experimental conditions and exhibit excitation dependant emission spectra. They can be employed as a label-free nanosensor when paired with Cr(VI) detection to generate a non-fluorescent compound that induces fluorescence quenching. Also, a carbon dot-modified electrode was developed for the selective detection of Hg(II) ions with a detection limit as low as 5.8 pM. To investigate their practical significance as a sensing probe, it was used for the analysis of metal ions in spiked water samples with outstanding sensitivity and accuracy. The in vitro cytotoxic studies on fibroblast cells reveal the non-toxicity of the CDs. The proposed nanosensor has a great deal of potential for finding numerous applications in environmental management due to its easy preparation, low cost, specificity, and sensitivity.

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Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or Supplementary Materials. Data and materials may be requested from Dr. Beena Mathew (corresponding author).

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Funding

The auhors receive financial support from the University Grants Commission (UGC) in the form of a Junior Research Fellowship (grant number BININ01735862).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, 686560, Kerala, India

    Sneha Mathew, Bony K. John, Chinnu R. Thara, Binila K. Korah & Beena Mathew

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  1. Sneha Mathew
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  2. Bony K. John
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Contributions

Sneha Mathew: conceptualization, methodology, resources, writing—original draft.

Bony K. John: data curation, visualization.

Chinnu R. Thara: data curation, visualization.

Binila K. Korah: data curation, editing.

Beena Mathew: conceptualization, supervision, project administration, writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to Beena Mathew.

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Mathew, S., John, B.K., Thara, C.R. et al. One-pot synthesis of sustainable carbon dots for analytical and cytotoxicity studies. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-03798-6

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