Shining Light on Carbon Dots: New Opportunities in Photocatalysis

Abstract

Photocatalysis is an emerging field that exploits light‐absorbing catalysts to yield transformations not even achievable in the dark. Considering the drawbacks of metal‐based photocatalysts, Carbon Dots (CDs) recently emerged as suitable green alternatives for different photocatalytic reactions. These carbon nanoparticles are easy to prepare, non‐toxic and potentially recyclable. Moreover, CDs usually display core‐shell structures which are highly tunable via synthetic and post‐synthetic strategies. This Concept Article focuses on the recent advancements in the CD‐based photocatalysis, highlighting the link between their superficial and core composition and their resulting photo‐redox abilities, and giving future perspectives on their application in cutting‐edge areas.

Chemical- and green-precursor-derived carbon dots for photocatalytic degradation of dyes

“…Apart from the enhanced contact area between CDs and contaminants owing to their small dimensions and the presence of various functional groups on the surface of CDs, the surface states on CDs may act as electron scavengers, leading to the inhibition of electron-hole pair recombination causing the charges to transfer efficiently, which is the ideal requirement for photocatalysis. 14 , 28 …”

Carbon dots prepared from waste wood and residual adhesive and their use as catalysts for hydrogen production

“…Carbon dots (CDs) derived from biomass materials are emerging carbon nanomaterials with the advantages of advances in synthesis (Bian et al 2016), hydrophilicity (Ehtesabi and Massah 2021), tunability (Ma et al 2016), and optical properties (Liu et al 2013), as well as a wide variety of raw materials, especially biomass (Li et al 2020), whose sources are extensive and low-cost. CDs are commonly used in ion detection (Yang et al 2022b), fluorescence imaging (Liu et al 2017), photocatalysis (Sbacchi et al 2023), and other applications. The main structure consists of a core composed mainly of sp 2 hybridized regions, and a shell composed of sp 3 hybridized regions (Zhu et al 2015).…”

Red-Emissive Center Formation within Carbon Dots Based on Citric Acid and Formamide

“…Carbon dots (CDs), which until recently were a new and intriguing class of luminescent carbon nanomaterials, have now become as popular among scientists as quantum dots due to their outstanding optical properties, which can be tuned by varying the synthesis parameters, and due to a wide range of applications . Thus, CDs are used in optoelectronics, , medicine, , as a platform for photocatalysis, to fabricate optical sensors, etc. Many reviews attempt to structure the accumulated knowledge over the past 20 years, − and although the structure of the CDs is still under discussion, the following classification of luminescent centers can be derived: (i) sp 2 -conjugated domains or polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) embedded within a carbon matrix, including heteroatom-based ones; (ii) surface-related luminescent centers; (iii) the cross-link-enhanced emission in nonconjugated polymer chains within CDs; and (iv) molecular fluorophores attached to CDs’ surface. , First, CDs with photoluminescence (PL) in the blue spectral region with high values of the PL quantum yield (QY) were obtained; many efforts were applied for a development of synthetic methods for shifting the PL band toward deep-red (DR, 640–700 nm) and near-infrared (NIR, 700–900 nm) spectral regions which are of high interest for bio applications.…”