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Large-scale synthesis of dual sensing nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots for real-time detection of pH and antibiotic

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Abstract

Recently, graphene quantum dots (GQDs) with bright fluorescence have emerged as a novel carbon nanomaterial because of their distinctive optical properties and robust chemical inertness. Herein, a simple bottom-up approach is used to prepare nitrogen-doped GQDs (N-GQDs) by using citric acid as the carbon source and tris (hydroxymethyl) aminomethane (Tris) as the nitrogen source. The prepared N-GQDs have a high yield of 61.50% and the quantum yield is 14.42%. Meanwhile, the N-GQDs exhibit clearly fluorescence quenching with the increase of pH value from 3.0 to 12.0. In addition, the N-GQDs possess excellent fluorescence quenching response to tetracycline (TC) due to the inner filter effect. And the fluorescence intensity of N-GQDs exhibits a good linear relationship with the addition of TC in range of 1–50 μM. The detection limit is determined to be 94 nM. Furthermore, the smartphone-based handheld device is developed to track the fluorescence colour changes caused by the variation of pH and TC. Through analysing the RGB values from the fluorescence images, good linearity between RGB values and pH values is obtained (R2 = 0.996), while the detection limit for TC detection is 97 nM. This method has been shown to be effective and reliable along with great promise for real-time visual monitoring of pH and TC values in real samples.

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Acknowledgement

This study was supported by projects from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 61604084 and K. C. Wong Magna Fund in Ningbo University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microelectronic Science and Engineering, School of Physical Science and Technology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, People’s Republic of China

    Xiameng Li, Yun Zhao, Tingting Li, Guoqiang Guo, Yiru Wang, Xu Wang, Jingzheng Yang & Da Chen

  2. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, People’s Republic of China

    Yun Zhao

  3. Ningbo Institute of Oceanography, Ningbo, 315800, People’s Republic of China

    Jingzheng Yang

Authors
  1. Xiameng Li
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  2. Yun Zhao
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  3. Tingting Li
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  4. Guoqiang Guo
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  5. Yiru Wang
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  6. Xu Wang
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  8. Da Chen
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Correspondence to Da Chen.

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Li, X., Zhao, Y., Li, T. et al. Large-scale synthesis of dual sensing nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots for real-time detection of pH and antibiotic. Bull Mater Sci 46, 77 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12034-023-02912-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12034-023-02912-8

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