Acid anhydride coated carbon nanodots: activated platforms for engineering clicked (bio)nanoconstructs

Abstract

Reactive acid anhydride coated carbon nanodots perpared by water-free thermolysis of citric acid are a gateway for engineering clicked (bio)nanoconstucts.

Amphiphilic-like carbon dots as antitumoral drug vehicles and phototherapeutical agents

“…High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) revealed spherical particles with an average diameter of 2.2 nm and selected area electron diffraction pattern supported the crystalline nature of CD-1Na with an interplanar spacing of 0.275 nm (Fig S2A). The emission spectrum ofCD-1Na was very similar to that for the CDots obtained by solvent free thermolysis of CA 37 sharing the excitation at 326 nm and emission at 454 nm peaks (Fig S2B ), and a quantum yield of 4% (Table S2). A closer analysis of the emission spectrum of CD-1Na(Fig S2B ) revealed a shoulder at 435 nm that can be rationalized considering that the thermolysis of CA is a complex process that involves the formation of several intermediates to yield a combination of CDs with different emission peaks.…”

“…Design of the synthesis of LCDs hCDs are promising nanoparticles that are synthesized by the use of water-insoluble binary mixtures of a carbon source and a capping agent [9][10][11][12][13][14] or by specific post-synthesis functionalization of hydrophilic CDs. 15,17 We envisioned a twostep synthesis consisting of a first step of thermolysis of CA, to yield CDs functionalized with acid anhydride groups (AA-CDs), 37 and a second step of reaction with alkyl amines to yield the grafting of the hydrophobic alkyl moiety via an amide linkage, with the concomitant formation of a carboxylic group. A differential feature of this approach is that the hydrophobicity of the resulting material is a balance between the ionization of the carboxylic groups and the hydrophobicity of the grafted amines.…”

“…Thermolysis of CA Thermolysis of CA was carried out by modification of the protocol previously reported for AA-CDs. 37 Briefly, an amount of 10 g of CA was placed in an open-round bottom flask and heated in an oil bath at 180 °C for 2 h in 10 mL of anhydrous DMSO to yield CD-1.…”

“…The presence of acid anhydride groups in CD-1 makes them reactive and functionalizable without any previous step of activation. 37 Our attention was focused on exploiting this feature to attach alkyl chains as hydrophobic moiety. Hexan-1amine and octadecan-1-amine were selected on the basis that they share reactivity toward CD-1 but differ in their contribution to hydrophobicity, the octanol water partition coefficient in terms of logP being estimated as 1.63 and 5.37 respectively.…”

A “Polymer Template” Strategy for Carbonized Polymer Dots with Controllable Properties

“…As a result, growing interest is being paid to study how to engineer PDs with desired core, FSG, and/or particle size, and numerous reports suggest that the choice of synthesis strategy dominates the structure [36, 37] and subsequent performance [35, 38] of PDs. For instance, top‐down [39] approaches are harsh methods involving extreme laboratory conditions to produce GQDs with almost fully carbonized cores, a kind of relatively well defined structure but with a lack of functional sites [40] .…”