A portable synthesis of water-soluble carbon dots for highly sensitive and selective detection of chlorogenic acid based on inner filter effect.

In this work, a simple and facile hydrothermal method for synthesis of water-soluble carbon dots (CDs) with malic acid and urea, and were then employed as a high-performance fluorescent probe for selective and sensitive determination of chlorogenic acid (CGA) based on inner filter effect. The as-synthesized CDs was systematically characterized by Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS), UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, spectrofluorophotometry, and the results indicated that the sizes of CDs were mainly distributed in the range of 1.0nm-3.0nm with an average diameter of 2.1nm. More significantly, the as-prepared CDs possessed remarkable selectivity and sensitivity towards CGA with the linear range of 0.15μmolL-1-60μmolL-1 and the detection limit for CGA was 45nmolL-1 (3σ/k). The practical applications of CDs for detection of CGA have already been successfully demonstrated in Honeysuckle. This sensitive, selective method has a great application prospect in the pharmaceutical and biological analysis field owing to its simplicity and rapidity for the detection of CGA.