Rapid and Green Fabrication of Carbon Dots for Cellular Imaging and Anti-Counterfeiting Applications

Abstract

Carbon dots (CDs) with plenty of favorable properties have been extensively investigated in diverse areas including bioimaging, biomedicine, sensor, energy storage, anti-counterfeiting, photocatalysis, and optoelectronic devices. Herein, a simple, rapid, and green sonochemical-assisted method for fabricating nitrogen-doped CDs has been developed. In this approach, the nitrogen-doped CDs can be obtained through irradiation by intensive ultrasonic waves from ultrasonic probes in 30 min. The achieved CDs exhibit excellent water dispersibility, which can be ascribed to their high functionalization. Importantly, the CDs also demonstrate remarkable fluorescent properties, high photostability, and low cytotoxicity, which can be utilized for multicolor cellular imaging and anti-counterfeiting applications. As far as we know, the sonochemical-assisted method for rapidly synthesizing nitrogendoped CDs from gelatin has never been reported before. Significantly, the sonochemical-assisted approach to rapidly fabricate CDs is versatile for the facile construction of fluorescent CDs, and the obtained CDs can be potentially used in various areas including bioimaging and anti-counterfeiting.

Environment‐Sensitive Carbon Dots Derived from Naphthalenediol for Solvent Polarity Indicator and Anti‐Counterfeiting

“…At present, anticounterfeiting is an important research direction of CDs fluorescence application, which has been widely reported. We compared the effect on solvent polarity and anti-counterfeiting of CDs recently reported (Table S1), [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] and found that most CDs exhibited a red-shift in their fluorescence peaks with the increase of solvent polarity and a small Stokes shift below 110 nm. In our work, with the increase of solvent polarity, the fluorescence peak blue-shifts, and Stokes shift is as large as 260 nm.…”

Carbon Dots: Synthesis, Properties and Applications

“…Although the synthesis routes, properties and applications of the CDs have been systematically summarized elsewhere, there are few dedicated reviews with emphases on the synthesis routes, properties and applications of the CDs [30][31][32][33]. Hence, aiming at a distinct perspective, we will compile a general review on the recent progress of the CDs.…”

Surface Chemistry Provoked Strategy to Develop Sustainable Latent Fingerprints Visualization and Multiple Anti-Counterfeiting Trajectory: Aggregation-Induced Emission Mechanism Based Active Conjugated Imidazole Luminogens

“…In recent years, counterfeiting of security documents, namely currency, certi cates, passport, pharmaceutical products have signi cantly imbalances the economic condition of the world [23][24][25] . In addition, easy accessibility of anti-counterfeiting (AC) inks and its validation for the counterfeiters are the key anxieties in this area.…”