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Facile Synthesis and Multiple Application of Ultralong-Afterglow Room Temperature Phosphorescence Aggregate Carbon Dots from Simple Raw Materials

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Abstract

Owing to the ultralong afterglow, room temperature decay phosphorescence nanomaterials have aroused enough attention. In the work, by simple one-pot solid-state thermal decomposition reaction, aggregate carbon dots (CDs) was prepared from trimesic and boric acid. Based on the intermolecular hydrogen bonds and intramolecular π-π stacking weak interaction from precursors, CDs was encapsulated in boron oxide matrix and formed aggregation. The aggregate state of CDs facilitated the triplet excited states (Tn), which could induce the room temperature decay phosphorescence properties. By careful investigation, under different excitation wavelengths at 254 and 365 nm, the aggregate CDs showed > 15 s and > 3 s room temperature phosphorescence emission in the naked eye, which was associated with 1516.12 ms and 718.62 ms lifetime respectively. And the aggregate CDs exhibited widespread application in encoding encryption, optical anti-counterfeiting and fingerprint identification etc. The interesting aggregate CDs revealed unexpected ultralong-afterglow room temperature decay phosphorescence properties and the work opened a window for constructing ultralong-afterglow room temperature decay phosphorescence aggregate CDs nanomaterials.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable requests.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (21701203, 22108320) and the Henan Provincial Foundation for the Scientific and Technological Program (Grant No. 17A150057, 222102320047). Postgraduate Education Reform and Quality Improvement Project of Henan Province (YJS2023JD37).

Funding

This work is funded by the National Science Foundation of China (22108320).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemistry and Chemical Eningeering, Henan Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Functional Materials, International Joint Research Laboratory for Biomedical Nanomaterials of Henan, Zhoukou Normal University, 466001, Zhoukou, P. R. China

    Wenping Zhu, Like Wang, Weijie Yang, Yahong Chen, Zengchen Liu, Yanxia Li & Yingying Xue

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Wenping Zhu and Zengchen Liu wrote the main manuscript text. Like Wang, Yahong Chen, Weijie Yang, Yanxia Li and Yingying Xue prepared figures and conducted data analysis. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zengchen Liu.

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Supplementary Material 1

: The DFT calculation detail of trimesic and boric acid complex, SEM images (Figure S1), Solid-state 1HNMR (Figure S2), 13CNMR (Figure S3) and 11BNMR (Figure S4) of aggregate CDs, XPS spectrometry (Figure S5), the variable temperature phosphorescence spectra (Figure S6 and Figure S7) at 254 and 365 nm.

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Zhu, W., Wang, L., Yang, W. et al. Facile Synthesis and Multiple Application of Ultralong-Afterglow Room Temperature Phosphorescence Aggregate Carbon Dots from Simple Raw Materials. J Fluoresc (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10895-023-03462-2

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