Issue 76, 2016

Green synthesis of carbon quantum dots from lemon peel waste: applications in sensing and photocatalysis

Abstract

In this work, water soluble carbon quantum dots (wsCQDs) were synthesized from lemon peel waste using a facile and cost effective hydrothermal process. As synthesized wsCQDs were 1–3 nm in size with spherical morphology and oxygen rich surface functionalities. These wsCQDs manifest excellent photoluminescence (PL) properties and exhibited quantum yield (QY) ∼14% with high aqueous stability. wsCQDs were further used to design an economic, green and highly sensitive fluorescent probe for the detection of Cr6+ ions with a detection limit of ∼73 nM. This wsCQDs based fluorescent probe could provide a simple, rapid, convenient technique for the sensitive and selective detection of Cr6+ in water purification processes. Further, wsCQDs were immobilized over electrospun TiO2 nanofibers and the photocatalytic activity for such a TiO2–wsCQDs composite was demonstrated using methylene blue (MB) dye as a model pollutant. Photocatalytic activity for the TiO2–wsCQDs composite was found to be ∼2.5 times more than that of TiO2 nanofibers. The synthesis method for wsCQDs could be easily scaled up for gram scale synthesis of carbon quantum dots.

Graphical abstract: Green synthesis of carbon quantum dots from lemon peel waste: applications in sensing and photocatalysis

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 4 2016
Accepted
23 7 2016
First published
25 7 2016

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 72423-72432

Green synthesis of carbon quantum dots from lemon peel waste: applications in sensing and photocatalysis

A. Tyagi, K. M. Tripathi, N. Singh, S. Choudhary and R. K. Gupta, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 72423 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA10488F

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