Carbon dots synthesized at room temperature for detection of tetracycline hydrochloride.

The traditional synthesis methods of carbon dots (CDs) have some disadvantages of complicated operation and a large amount of energy consumption. To address these limitations, we synthesized yellow-green luminescent CDs at room temperature according to the principle of amine-aldehyde condensation in this work. This reaction is simple, economical, energy saving and is extremely consistent with the concept of green synthesis and sustainable development. In addition, studies have found that tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) can quench the fluorescence of the as-prepared CDs through Inner filter effect (IFE). The changes of the fluorescence intensity also have a good linear relationship with the concentration of TC in the range of 10.0-400.0 μM, and the detection limit is 6.0 μM. This method has been successfully used to determine the tetracycline content of tetracycline tablets. Finally, the interaction mechanism between TC and CDs was analyzed and discussed.