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Green-emitting carbon quantum dots as a dual-mode fluorescent and colorimetric sensor for hypochlorite

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Abstract

In this work, green-emitting carbon quantum dots were successfully prepared through a facile one-step solid-state reaction method. The obtained green-emitting carbon dots (G-CDs) showed good fluorescence stability in NaCl aqueous solution and different pH values. Moreover, the G-CDs showed high sensitivity and selectivity for detecting hypochlorite by both fluorometry and colorimetry. Under the optimized condition, a highly sensitive detection of hypochlorite was established in the range of 0.2–100 μM and 10–150 μM for fluorescent and colorimetric methods, respectively. The corresponding limits of detection (LOD) were 0.0781 μM and 1.82 μM, respectively. Therefore, the G-CDs were successfully applied to determinate hypochlorite in actual water samples. In addition, a paper-based sensor loading with the G-CDs was also developed for rapid visual detection of hypochlorite. The results suggested that the G-CDs could be a promising candidate to detect hypochlorite.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0207003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21775042, 22176044, and 82001957), and the start fund of GDUPT (519166 and 519167).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental System Optimization, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, People’s Republic of China

    Yiming Bu, Long Yu, Pengchen Su, Lingxiao Wang, Zhenli Sun, Xiangke Wang & Suhua Wang

  2. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Petrochemical Pollution Processes and Control, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Guangdong University of Petrochemical Technology, Maoming, 525000, People’s Republic of China

    Yiming Bu, Long Yu, Pengchen Su, Lingxiao Wang, Mingtai Sun & Suhua Wang

  3. Department of Food Science and Technology, National University of Singapore, 3 Science Drive 2, Singapore, 117542, Singapore

    Dejian Huang

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  1. Yiming Bu
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  2. Long Yu
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  3. Pengchen Su
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  7. Xiangke Wang
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  9. Suhua Wang
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Contributions

Yiming Bu: methodology, investigation, data curation, and writing—original draft.

Long Yu: methodology and investigation

Pengchen Su: methodology and software

Lingxiao Wang: methodology and software

Zhenli Sun: review and editing

Mingtai Sun: supervision

Xiangke Wang: review and editing

Dejian Huang: review and editing

Suhua Wang: supervision and writing—review and editing

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Correspondence to Suhua Wang.

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Bu, Y., Yu, L., Su, P. et al. Green-emitting carbon quantum dots as a dual-mode fluorescent and colorimetric sensor for hypochlorite. Anal Bioanal Chem 414, 2651–2660 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-03901-2

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