In this work, a facile, economical and green method for the preparation of nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) was established via hydrothermal synthesis using p-phenylenediamine and asparagine. The as-prepared N-CDs were characterized by Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction patterns (XRD), Raman, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and other methods. Furthermore, the N-CDs showed high sensitivity toward cobalt (II) ion (Co2+). Interestingly, the fluorescence of N-CDs was quenched linearly in the 0.3-65 μM Co2+ concentrations range, under the optimum conditions, displaying a fast response toward Co2+ with the detection limit as low as 22 nM. Simultaneously, this method was applied in the analysis of water samples with considerable results. Finally, the N-CDs were successfully utilized as the imaging probe of live root tip tissue of Arabidopsis thaliana, demonstrating that the N-CDs possessed significant theoretical research meaning in the fields of biological correlation analysis, environmental monitoring and disease diagnosis.
Keywords: Biological imaging; Cobalt ions; Determination; Nitrogen-doped carbon dots.
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