A fluorescence probe based on the nitrogen-doped carbon dots prepared from orange juice for detecting Hg²⁺ in water

An excellent biocompatible nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) was successfully synthesized from orange juice and ethylenediamine by hydrothermal decomposition method. The as-prepared N-CDs were mono-dispersed spherical nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution of 0.5–3.0 nm and showed a good dispersion and stability in aqueous solution with the pH value ranging from 3.0 to 13.0. Photoluminescence spectra of as-prepared N-CDs demonstrated that the fluorescence intensity of N-CDs was increased with the doped nitrogen atoms and the FL-QY (fluorescence quantum yield) of N-CDs was up to 31.7%. Compared with Gly-CQDs(CQDs synthesied by Gly), which were prepared from chemical carbon source via hydrothermal decomposition method, the as-prepared N-CDs showed much lower cytotoxicity for Human THP-1 macrophage cells. These results indicated N-CDs prepared by our proposed method have excellent compatibility and more suitable for the application in biolabeling and bioimage. Due to the fluorescence quenching of N-CDs by mercury (II) ion (Hg²⁺), a sensitive and selective method was developed for detecting Hg²⁺. The results indicated that the fluorescence intensity ratio of N-CDs was proportional to the concentration of Hg²⁺ in the range from 4.0 μg/mL to 32.0 μg/mL and the recovery of spiked samples was ranged from 102.0% to 103.0%, which hinted our proposed method has a good sensitivity and accuracy and was suitable for detecting Hg²⁺ with satisfactory in tap water.