Development of carbon dot-thiochrome-based sensing system for ratiometric fluorescence detection of D-penicillamine

Nitrogen-doped Ti3C2 MXene quantum dots as an effective FRET ratio fluorometric probe for sensitive detection of Cu2+ and D-PA

In this work, a ratiometric fluorescence sensing platform was established to detect Cu²⁺ and D-PA (d-penicillamine) based on nitrogen-doped Ti₃C₂ MXene quantum dots (N-MODs) that was prepared via a simple hydrothermal method and exhibited strong fluorescent and photoluminescence performance as well as excellent stability. Since the oxidation reaction between o-phenylenediamine (OPD) and Cu²⁺ induced the formation of 2,3-diaminophenazine (ox-OPD) which not only can emerge an emission peak at 570 nm, but also inhibit the fluorescence intensity of N-MQDs at 450 nm, a ratiometric reverse fluorescence sensor via fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) was designed to sensitively detect Cu²⁺, where N-MQDs acted as energy donor and ox-OPD as energy acceptor. More importantly, another considerably interesting phenomenon was that their catalytic oxidation reaction can be restrained in the presence of D-PA because of the coordination of Cu²⁺ with D-PA, further triggering the obvious changes in ratio fluorescent signal and color, thus a ratiometric fluorescent sensor of determining D-PA was proposed also in this work. After optimizing various conditions, the ratiometric sensing platform showed rather low detection limits for Cu²⁺ (3.0 nM) and D-PA (0.115 μM), coupled with excellent sensitivity and stability.

Construction of ratiometric fluorescence sensor and test strip with smartphone based on dual-emission carbon dots for the specific detection of chlortetracycline

Concerns about environmental and food contamination caused by chlortetracycline (CTC) residues have prompted people to explore efficient and convenient CTC monitoring platforms. However, the reported fluorescent probes generally fail to selectively detect CTC due to the structural similarity of tetracycline antibiotics. Herein, an intrinsic dual-emission carbon dots (D-CDs) ratiometric fluorescence sensor was prepared for highly sensitive and selective determination of CTC over other tetracyclines by one-step synthesis. The sensor exhibited a significant fluorescence enhancement at 425 nm after introducing CTC. The fluorescence "turn on" of the sensing system is due to aggregation-induced emission (AIE) phenomenon formed by hydrogen bonds and π conjugation promoting the specific recognition of CTC by D-CDs. The linear detection varied from 0.98 to 143.67 ng mL^-1 with a low limit of detection (LOD) of 1.29 ng mL^-1 (R² = 0.998), which was lower than most reported in the literature. The D-CDs sensor was applied to detect CTC in spiked milk, blocked normal human serum, and fish samples with recoveries of 95.5-104.2% and relative standard deviations (RSDs) of 2.6%. Particularly, D-CDs based test papers with a smartphone were prepared for portable and visual detection of CTC by analyzing the various color changes of RGB of fluorescence color, with an LOD of 7.18 ng mL^-1 (R² = 0.9909). The fluorescence sensor designed in this work could be used as a rapid tool with high performance and selectivity for monitoring control in foods.