P₂O₅ assisted green synthesis of multicolor fluorescent water soluble carbon dots

Abstract

A low cost synthesis of multicolor fluorescent carbon dots (C-dots) from edible sugars is described here. Common sugars like dextrose, lactose or maltose in aqueous medium gets dehydrated using phosphorus pentoxide (P₂O₅). The reaction is facile and completed within few minutes to form insoluble carbon (C-dots) mostly having the graphitic (G-band, Raman) sp² hybridized carbon atoms (C-atoms). This insoluble carbon on oxidative treatment with nitric acid produced disordered sp³ (D-band retaining G-band, Raman) hybridized C-atoms, originated from the graphitic pool with sp² hybridized C-atoms. This high density assimilation of self passivated “surfacial defects” become emissive during electronic transitions. Surfacial defects due to high degree of electrophilic carboxylation create the water soluble version of multicolor fluorescent C-dots as “water soluble fluorescent carbon dots” (wsFCDs). wsFCDs being itself self-passivated imposes the tunable multicolor emission throughout the visible spectrum without having any external coating and surface passivation and could be used as multicolor fluorescent probe especially in the emerging field of optical bio-imaging.