Highly fluorescent N-doped carbon nanodots as an effective multi-probe quenching system for the determination of nitrite, nitrate and ferric ions in food matrices.

Tris-(hydroxymethyl)-aminomethane and urea were used as low-cost precursor compounds to synthesize highly fluorescent N-doped carbon nanodots (CNDs), in an environmentally-friendly, inexpensive process. The as-prepared CNDs exhibit blue fluorescence, excellent photostability under various conditions, water dispersibility and stability over several parameters, such as a wide range of pH. The N-doped CNDs were applied as a multi-probe fluorescence quenching system to the sensitive detection of nitrite (NO2-), nitrate (NO3-) and ferric (Fe3+) ions in food matrices. The recoveries from spiked food samples were fairly acceptable without significant interferences despite the complexity of the tested matrices. The decrease in fluorescence intensity is in linear relationship with the concentrations of NO2-, NO3- and Fe3+, in the ranges of 0.015-1.11 mM, 0.072-0.60 mM and 2.9-176 μΜ, respectively. The as-synthesized carbon dots were used for the detection of NO2-, NO3- and Fe3+ in food matrices after proper pretreatment, concluding that the multi-probe fluorescence system may potentially be implemented in food control. The FRET mechanism is able to describe the quenching of the CNDs-NO2- system, while the proportional temperature-dependent relationship with the slopes of calibration plots hint at a dynamic quenching mechanism. In the case of the CNDs-Fe3+ system, the slopes exhibit an inverse temperature dependence, indicating a static mechanism while there is no indication of a FRET mechanism.