Green Route for the Synthesis of Fluorescent Carbon Nanoparticles from Circassian Seeds for Fe(III) Ion Detection.

A facile and green strategy was carried out for the preparation of fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (CNp) using non-toxic circassian seeds as carbon precursor (CNp, named ACNp). The surface of amorphous ACNp is latched with different surface moieties such as hydroxyl, carbonyl, ether and amino groups and it is confirmed by FTIR and XPS. These functionalities provide high solubility and stability to ACNp in aqueous medium. The surface of ACNp is highly negatively charged due to the presence of oxygen rich functional groups and it is confirmed by zeta potential. A reasonably good quantum yield (QY) of 5.1% is obtained for ACNp compared to other CNp derived from bioprecursors without any surface passivation. Circassian seeds are self sufficient for the synthesis of N doped CNp. The excitation dependent fluorescence property of ACNp is invariant under ionic and thermal environments. They exhibit good selectivity towards Fe3+ ions via static quenching mechanism with detection limit of 32.7 µM.