Enhancement of the Carbon Dots/K2S2O8 Chemiluminescence System Induced by Triethylamine

Abstract

Triethylamine (TEA), a common coreactant for electrochemiluminescence (ECL), is first utilized as a coreactant for chemiluminescence (CL). The CL intensity of carbon dots/K2S2O8 could be increased by ∼20 times in the presence of TEA. On the basis of this fascinating phenomenon, a room temperature operated senor is constructed for the fast, selective, and sensitive determination of TEA. A wide linear relationship between CL intensity and TEA concentration from 1 μM to 1000 μM (R2 = 0.9995) was found with the detection limit down to 1 μM. The enhancement mechanism of TEA to this CL system is carefully investigated. Experimental results reveal that the forming of TEA free radical is what indeed induced the enhancement of the CL efficiency of CDs.