Uncovering the actual inner-filter effect between highly efficient carbon dots and nitroaromatics

Hye Jin Lee; Jayasmita Jana; Jin Suk Chung; Seung Hyun Hur

doi:10.1016/j.saa.2020.118342

Uncovering the actual inner-filter effect between highly efficient carbon dots and nitroaromatics

Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2020 Aug 5:236:118342. doi: 10.1016/j.saa.2020.118342. Epub 2020 Apr 4.

Authors

Hye Jin Lee¹, Jayasmita Jana¹, Jin Suk Chung¹, Seung Hyun Hur²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, University of Ulsan, Daehak-ro 93, Nam-gu, Ulsan 44610, South Korea.
² School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, University of Ulsan, Daehak-ro 93, Nam-gu, Ulsan 44610, South Korea. Electronic address: shhur@mail.ulsan.ac.kr.

PMID: 32305836
DOI: 10.1016/j.saa.2020.118342

Abstract

High performance sensors can be produced by adequately designing the chemical structure and uncovering the actual detection mechanism. In this study, a fluorescent probe was synthesized for various nitroaromatic molecules, including stereochemically varied nitrophenols and nitroaniline. A systematic investigation of the influence of various analytes on the luminescence behavior of the as-synthesized carbon dot (CDs) revealed the inner-filter effect to be the major detection mechanism. The extinction coefficient and spectral overlap were found to be the critical parameters for high sensitivity and good selectivity rather than the functional groups of the CDs and analytes.

Keywords: Carbon dots; Fluorescence; Inner-filter effect (IFE); Nitroaniline; Nitrophenol; Quenching.