Highly luminescent N, S- Co-doped carbon dots and their direct use as mercury(II) sensor

• NSCDs were synthesized by using citric acid and rubeanic acid.
• NSCDs exhibited an enhanced fluorescent efficiency with high QY up to 17.6%.
• NSCDs presented good sensing performance to mercury ions.
• NSCDs showed potential use as a multi-sensing platform.

Heteroatom doping has been proven as an efficient way to improve the fluorescent efficiency of carbon dots. Co-doping with heteroatoms may introduce more active sites to carbon dots, which would broaden applications of CDs in sensing. In this work, highly luminescent nitrogen and sulfur co-doped carbon dots (NSCDs) were synthesized through a facile one-step microwave assisted method by using citric acid and rubeanic acid as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur sources. The well-isolated NSCDs not only exhibit an enhanced fluorescent efficiency with a relatively high quantum yield up to 17.6%, but also show potential use as a multi-sensing platform based on their fluorescence “on-off-on” and color changing behaviors. The NSCDs can be directly used for the selective determination of mercury cations without any functionalization. The detection limit is approximately calculated as 0.18 μM and linear range is 0–20 μM. The sensing mechanism is proposed as coordination reaction induced by oligomers upon the carbon core. Furthermore, in the presence of cyanide anions, the fluorescence shows linear recovery associated with the concentration of cyanide, indicating its potential usage for the detection of cyanide ion. The optimized pH range for such fluorescence “on-off-on” sensing system is investigated as pH 6–8, suggesting potential applications in bio-sensing and imaging area. In addition, by adding hydrosulfide anion to NSCDs@Hg2+ complex, a notable color change could be clearly observed due to the formation of fuscous HgS. In application, a handy test paper for direct and rapid detection of Hg2+ is manufactured for the evaluation of usage of NSCDs in the real circumstance.

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