Blue luminescence carbon quantum dots derived from oil palm empty fruit bunch biomass

Abstract

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have attracted tremendous attention for their interesting properties such as excellent chemical and photo stability, good water dispersibility, biocompatibility and possessing outstanding photoluminescence (PL) properties. In this study, oil palm biomass is used as the carbon precursor to produce CQDs and exhibit high luminescent properties. However, a large amount of biomass produces by the oil palm industry is either burnt in the open air or disposed in waste ponds and contributes to global climate change via emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. Hence, synthesis the CQDs from oil palm biomass by hydrothermal treatment method has formed excellent properties in optical properties that could be comparable to semiconductor quantum dots. The results have shown the diameter size of CQDs in the range of 2-5 nm. While, the optical properties, UV-vis spectrum of CQDs have given a strong absorption at 282 nm and obtains in brown color under visible light and emitting blue luminescence under 365 nm of UV lamp. Furthermore, PL spectra of CQDs have shown excitation and emission wavelength at 360 nm and 450 nm, respectively. This is attribute to the excitation-wavelength dependent of PL properties. Hence, the spectra from FTIR showed the existence of hydroxyl and carboxyl groups on the CQDs would have originated from lignocellulosic materials, thus resulted in excellent water stability and solubility properties of CQDs. The presented study is the green approached reprocessed biomass from waste to materials with excellent optical properties that could utilize in various field of applications.