In recent years, carbon dots (CDs) have triggered considerable interest due to their intriguing tunable photoluminescence properties. In this work, we report the synthesis of green-emitting CDs from two different carbon sources, namely carbon nano-onions and graphene oxide. We also investigate the effects of the two starting materials on the physico-chemical properties of the as-synthesised CDs. Our results show that both CDs exhibit remarkable emission properties and different fluorescence behaviour, which is attributed to the differences in size, surface defects, as well as the presence of different surface functional groups. Moreover, we propose an innovative, low-cost and time-saving method for the recovery of CDs from solution by acetone-mediated precipitation. We demonstrate that this methodology can rival the common dialysis-based purification approach; it shows excellent photostability, and the CD fluorescent properties are retained. Our work paves the way for the use of these particles for biomedical applications by exploiting their interesting fluorescent features as well as their oxygen-enriched surface for further functionalization strategies.
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