Fluorescent sensors based on Cu-doped carbon quantum dots for the detection of rutin

Abstract

In this paper, Cu-doped carbon quantum dots (Cu-CQDs) were prepared by carrying out thermolysis of Na2[Cu(EDTA)] and hydroxylamine hydrochloride at 300 °C for 2 h. The as-prepared Cu-CQDs were characterized by UV-Vis, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The Cu-CQDs exhibited good fluorescence property, high stability, excitation-dependent emission behavior and a quantum yield of 9.8%. More significantly, the synthesized Cu-CQDs were developed for sensing rutin (RT) based on the fluorescence quenching of the prepared Cu-CQDs. A good linear relationship between the fluorescence quenching of Cu-CQDs and different concentrations of RT was obtained in the range of 0.1-15 μg mL-1 with a correlation coefficient of 0.9959. The detection limit was as low as 0.05 μg mL-1 (signal-to-noise ratio, S/N = 3). The possible mechanism of fluorescence quenching was explored, which was proved to be inner filter effect. Importantly, the proposed method was successfully applied in the detection of RT tablet samples and with satisfactory results, showing the practical applications.