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Metal ion sensing and light activated antimicrobial activity of aloe-vera derived carbon dots

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Abstract

Carbon dots (CDs) have emerged out as a potential material amongst the carbon family for a wide range of applications including chemical/biological sensing, photocatalysis, bioimaging, etc. The green synthesis of these CDs from natural sources is gaining the significant interest of peer community for their wide utility. Herein, we present a facile one-step pyrolysis method for CDs synthesis from Aloe-Vera extract, which show bright blue luminescence under UV light with a quantum yield of 12.3%. Further, ex-situ morphological, structural and optical characterizations reveal their high quality and excitation independent emission behavior with the presence of carboxyl, hydroxyl functional groups. Furthermore, these CDs were studied for Fe(III) sensing in water without any surface modifications and assessed for their light activated antibacterial activity against E.Coli and Staphylococcus aureus.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Prof. R. K. Sinha, Director CSIR-CSIO, Chandigarh for his constant support. PD acknowledges Department of Science and Technology New Delhi, India for the research project Grant (SYST, GAP 375). AT acknowledges DST INSPIRE fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Sector 30C, Chandigarh, 160030, India

    Pooja Devi, Anupma Thakur, Sanjeev K. Bhardwaj, Shefali Saini & Prachi Rajput

  2. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, 110001, India

    Pooja Devi & Anupma Thakur

  3. Department of Materials Science, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, 700032, India

    Praveen Kumar

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  1. Pooja Devi
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  2. Anupma Thakur
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Correspondence to Pooja Devi.

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Devi, P., Thakur, A., Bhardwaj, S.K. et al. Metal ion sensing and light activated antimicrobial activity of aloe-vera derived carbon dots. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 29, 17254–17261 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-018-9819-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-018-9819-0

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