Green Synthesis of Fluorescent Carbon Dots for Selective Detection of Tartrazine in Food Samples

A simple, economical, and green method for the preparation of water-soluble, high-fluorescent carbon quantum dots (C-dots) has been developed via hydrothermal process using aloe as a carbon source. The synthesized C-dots were characterized by atomic force microscope (AFM), transmission electron micr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 2015-08, Vol.63 (30), p.6709-6716
Main Authors: Xu, Hua, Yang, Xiupei, Li, Gu, Zhao, Chuan, Liao, Xiangjun
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aloe
Aloe - chemistry
Bread - analysis
Candy - analysis
carbon
Carbon - chemistry
Fluorescence
Food Analysis - instrumentation
Food Analysis - methods
food coloring
Food Coloring Agents - chemistry
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
Green Chemistry Technology
Honey - analysis
markets
Particle Size
photoluminescence
photostability
quantum dots
Quantum Dots - chemistry
solubility
tartrazine
Tartrazine - chemistry
toxicity
transmission electron microscopy
ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A simple, economical, and green method for the preparation of water-soluble, high-fluorescent carbon quantum dots (C-dots) has been developed via hydrothermal process using aloe as a carbon source. The synthesized C-dots were characterized by atomic force microscope (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), fluorescence spectrophotometer, UV–vis absorption spectra as well as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results reveal that the as-prepared C-dots were spherical shape with an average diameter of 5 nm and emit bright yellow photoluminescence (PL) with a quantum yield of approximately 10.37%. The surface of the C-dots was rich in hydroxyl groups and presented various merits including high fluorescent quantum yield, excellent photostability, low toxicity and satisfactory solubility. Additionally, we found that one of the widely used synthetic food colorants, tartrazine, could result in a strong fluorescence quenching of the C-dots through a static quenching process. The decrease of fluorescence intensity made it possible to determine tartrazine in the linear range extending from 0.25 to 32.50 μM, This observation was further successfully applied for the determination of tartrazine in food samples collected from local markets, suggesting its great potential toward food routine analysis. Results from our study may shed light on the production of fluorescent and biocompatible nanocarbons due to our simple and environmental benign strategy to synthesize C-dots in which aloe was used as a carbon source.
ISSN:0021-8561
1520-5118
DOI:10.1021/acs.jafc.5b02319