Carbon dots based fluorescent sensor for sensitive determination of hydroquinone

Abstract

In this paper, a novel biosensor based on Carbon dots (C-dots) for sensitive detection of hydroquinone (H2Q) is reported. It is interesting to find that the fluorescence of the C-dots could be quenched by H2Q directly. The possible quenching mechanism is proposed, which shows that the quenching effect may be caused by the electron transfer from C-dots to oxidized H2Q-quinone. Based on the above principle, a novel C-dots based fluorescent probe has been successfully applied to detect H2Q. Under the optimal condition, detection limit down to 0.1 μM is obtained, which is far below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated wastewater discharge limit of 0.5 mg/L. Moreover, the proposed method shows high selectivity for H2Q over a number of potential interfering species. Finally, several water samples spiked with H2Q are analyzed utilizing the sensing method with satisfactory recovery. The proposed method is simple with high sensitivity and excellent selectivity, which provides a new approach for the detection of various analytes that can be transformed into quinone.

Keywords: Carbon dots; Fluorescence method; Fluorescence quenching; Hydroquinone.