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Fluorescent Carbon Dots as Cost-Effective and Facile Probes for Caffeic Acid Sensing via a Fluorescence Quenching Process

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Abstract

Caffeic acid (CA), a familiar color stabilizing reagent, has aroused general concern due to its uncontrolled addition, and thus the detection of CA is increasingly important. In our report, the bright carbon dots (CDs) were prepared via hydrothermal treatment with urea and citric acid act as raw material and their characteristics were discussed through X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and so on. Impressively, the strong emission of the as-prepared CDs (Quantum Yield: 24.3%) decreased sharply upon a full reaction with the added CA. Hence, we first present an improved strategy for determining CA based upon the quenching of the strong emission of CDs. In this strategy, 0.79–100.0 µmol L− 1 caffeic acid could be simply detected, and a detection limit of 0.24 µmol L− 1 was allowed. Additionally, CA in red wine samples can be successfully detected by this method and the exploration of the quenching mechanism of the CA-CDs system was done.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support for this study by grants of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 21705132; Grant no.21475014), the Special Fund of Chongqing Key Laboratory (CSTC) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (XDJK 2013A022).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Luminescent and Real-Time analytical Chemistry (Southwest University), Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Qianqian Sun, Yuwei Long, Hongxi Li, Shuang Pan, Shaopu Liu & Xiaoli Hu

  2. College of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Chongqing Three Gorges University, Chongqing, Wanzhou, 404100, China

    Jidong Yang

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  1. Qianqian Sun
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  2. Yuwei Long
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  3. Hongxi Li
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  4. Shuang Pan
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  6. Shaopu Liu
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  7. Xiaoli Hu
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Correspondence to Xiaoli Hu.

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Sun, Q., Long, Y., Li, H. et al. Fluorescent Carbon Dots as Cost-Effective and Facile Probes for Caffeic Acid Sensing via a Fluorescence Quenching Process. J Fluoresc 28, 523–531 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-018-2213-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-018-2213-8

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