Issue 35, 2021

Turning waste into wealth: facile and green synthesis of carbon nanodots from pollutants and applications to bioimaging

Abstract

In an effort to turn waste into wealth, Reactive Red 2 (RR2), a common and refractory organic pollutant in industrial wastewater, has been employed for the first time as a precursor to synthesize carbon nanodots (CNDs) by a facile, green and low-cost route, without utilization of any strong acids or other oxidizers. The detailed characterizations have confirmed that the synthesized CNDs exhibit good water dispersibility, with a mean particle size of 2.43 nm and thickness of 1–3 layers. Importantly, the excellent fluorescence properties and much reduced biotoxicity of the CNDs confer its potential applications in further biological imaging, which has been successfully verified in both in vitro (cell culture) and in vivo (zebrafish) model systems. Thus, it is demonstrated that the synthesized CNDs exhibit nice biocompatibility and fluorescence properties for bioimaging. This work not only provides a novel economical and environmentally friendly approach in recycling a chemical pollutant, but also greatly promotes the potential application of CNDs in biological imaging.

Graphical abstract: Turning waste into wealth: facile and green synthesis of carbon nanodots from pollutants and applications to bioimaging

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
25 mei 2021
Accepted
01 aug 2021
First published
02 aug 2021
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2021,12, 11722-11729

Turning waste into wealth: facile and green synthesis of carbon nanodots from pollutants and applications to bioimaging

W. Chen, J. Shen, Z. Wang, X. Liu, Y. Xu, H. Zhao and D. Astruc, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 11722 DOI: 10.1039/D1SC02837E

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