In the past ten years, as a novel and prospective nanomaterials, carbon dots have acquired tremendous attention for their unique optical and physicochemical properties, high compatibility and low cost, as well as great potential in sensing area. This review aims to present the current detecting principles based on carbon dots and other nano biological technologies, involving fluorescence quenching and recovery mechanisms. The synthetic and modificatory approaches in making carbon dots including top-down and bottom-up methods, as well as surface passivation and heteroatom doping ways are introduced. Their applications in food area, concerning detection of nutrients, restricted or banned substances as well as foodborne pathogenic bacteria and the toxins secreted are discussed. Finally, the difficulties to be overcome or problems to be solved are presented, and other novel techniques to combine with carbon dots to obtain more stable and specific nanosensors in various fields are proposed. Although carbon dots based sensors have shown the potential in sensing aspect of food area, as food samples are complex in compositions that may cause interferences, more novel techniques are needed to combine with carbon dots to develop sensitive and specific sensing probes.
Keywords: Carbon quantum dot; fluorescence quenching; fluorescence recovery; food safety, sensing.