Capillary electrophoretic study of green fluorescent hollow carbon nanoparticles

Controlled synthesis of fluorescent carbon materials with the assistance of capillary electrophoresis

Carbon nanodots (CNDs) have been widely applied in variety of fields, while some evidences indicate their components may be complicated. In this work, capillary electrophoresis (CE) was used to evaluate the effect of synthetic conditions of fluorescent CNDs prepared through the hydrothermal method using citric acid (CA) and Triaminoguanidinium chloride (TG_Cl) as the starting materials. The results indicated that the fluorescent components of the products were affected by the ratio of the starting materials, the reaction temperature and reaction time. Under selected conditions, a ratio of TG_Cl to CA of 1:6, the reaction at 180 °C for 3 h, the product contains more than 4 fluorescent components with similar optical properties. CNDs were used for the determination of Cr(VI) in environmental samples with recoveries ranging in 95.3-107%, and the mechanism was also confirmed.

Contributions of Capillary Electrophoresis in Analytical Nanometrology: A Critical View

An overview on the increasing role of capillary electrophoresis in characterization and direct analysis of nanomaterials is herein presented. The niche of electrophoretic approaches in nanometrology is so relevant that nonmetallic, metal, metal oxide nanoparticles, and quantum dots have been analyzed to be targeted via capillary electrophoresis with conventional detection systems or coupling arrangements aimed at increasing selectivity and sensitivity toward either pristine or conjugated nanoparticles. Moreover, parameters altering intrinsic properties of nanoparticles may be optimized to gather the desired results and identify nanomaterials according to their size, shape, or associations with binding agents. The usefulness and quickness of capillary electrophoresis for quantifying or screening ultrasmall-sized particles enables this technique to set an example for analysis of standards or previously synthesized nanostructures in research or routine laboratories. Abundant evidence of the suitability of electrophoretic approaches for characterization and direct determination of nanomaterials in actual samples has been provided in this review, together with a discussion about hyphenation with state-of-the art detectors and comparison between capillary electrophoresis with other separation approaches. This permits scientific community to be optimistic in the short term.

Characterization of Nanoparticles: Advances

Over the past two decades, the unique properties of engineered nanoparticles (NPs) have placed them at the centre of revolutionary advancements in many sectors of science, technology and commerce. Multi-technique and multi-disciplinary analytical approaches are required to identify, quantify, and characterize the chemical composition, size and size distribution, surface properties and the number and concentration of NPs. In this chapter, an overview of the recent advances in the characterization of NPs will be presented.

Introduction to Photonics: Principles and the Most Recent Applications of Microstructures

Light has found applications in data transmission, such as optical fibers and waveguides and in optoelectronics. It consists of a series of electromagnetic waves, with particle behavior. Photonics involves the proper use of light as a tool for the benefit of humans. It is derived from the root word “photon”, which connotes the tiniest entity of light analogous to an electron in electricity. Photonics have a broad range of scientific and technological applications that are practically limitless and include medical diagnostics, organic synthesis, communications, as well as fusion energy. This will enhance the quality of life in many areas such as communications and information technology, advanced manufacturing, defense, health, medicine, and energy. The signal transmission methods used in wireless photonic systems are digital baseband and RoF (Radio-over-Fiber) optical communication. Microwave photonics is considered to be one of the emerging research fields. The mid infrared (mid-IR) spectroscopy offers a principal means for biological structure analysis as well as nonintrusive measurements. There is a lower loss in the propagations involving waveguides. Waveguides have simple structures and are cost-efficient in comparison with optical fibers. These are important components due to their compactness, low profile, and many advantages over conventional metallic waveguides. Among the waveguides, optofluidic waveguides have been found to provide a very powerful foundation for building optofluidic sensors. These can be used to fabricate the biosensors based on fluorescence. In an optical fiber, the evanescent field excitation is employed to sense the environmental refractive index changes. Optical fibers as waveguides can be used as sensors to measure strain, temperature, pressure, displacements, vibrations, and other quantities by modifying a fiber. For some application areas, however, fiber-optic sensors are increasingly recognized as a technology with very interesting possibilities. In this review, we present the most common and recent applications of the optical fiber-based sensors. These kinds of sensors can be fabricated by a modification of the waveguide structures to enhance the evanescent field; therefore, direct interactions of the measurand with electromagnetic waves can be performed. In this research, the most recent applications of photonics components are studied and discussed.

Elucidating the structure of carbon nanoparticles by ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionisation quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry

A fast and accurate ultra-performance liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionisation quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MS/MS) method was developed for the separation and structural elucidation of fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (CNP). The CNP was synthesised from microwave-assisted pyrolysis of citric acid (CA) and 1,2-ethylenediamine (EDA). By using UPLC separation, the CNP product was well separated into ten fractions within 4.0 min. Based on high-accuracy MS and MS/MS analyses, the CNP species were revealed to display six kinds of chemical formulas, including (C10H20N4O5)n, (C8H12N2O5)n, (C16H22N4O9)n, (C6H8O7)n, (C14H18N2O11)n, and (C14H16N2O10)n. In particular, our study revealed for the first time that the CNP species exist as supramolecular clusters with their individual monomers units linked together through non-covalent bonding forces. These findings clearly indicated the usefulness of UPLC-ESI-Q-TOF-MS/MS in identifying the chemical composition of CNP product. It is anticipated that our proposed methodology can be applied to study the structure-property relationships of CNP, facilitating in the production of CNP with desirable spectral features.

Carbon dots isolated from chromatographic fractions for sensing applications

An as-synthesised C-dots sample derived from acetic acid, NAC and P₂O₅ can be separated and fractionated into various C-dots species by HPLC. The brighter C-dots fractions can be used as fluorescent probes for sensitive detection of Fe³⁺ and Hg²⁺.