Microwave assisted synthesis of luminescent carbonaceous nanoparticles from silk fibroin for bioimaging

- Synthesis of luminescent carbonaceous nanoparticles by microwave assisted hydrothermal treatment of silk fibroin.
- The emission of the obtained carbonaceous nanoparticles is excitation dependent.
- These carbonaceous nanoparticles possess high stability, low cytotoxicity and high biocompatibility.
- These luminescent carbonaceous nanoparticles are used for live cell imaging.

Bombyx mori silk as a natural protein based biopolymer with high nitrogen content, is abundant and sustainable because of its mass product all over the world per year. In this study, we developed a facile and fast microwave-assisted synthesis of luminescent carbonaceous nanoparticles using Bombyx mori silk fibroin and silk solution as the precursors. As a result, the obtained carbonaceous nanoparticles exhibit a photoluminescence quantum yield of ~ 20%, high stability, low cytotoxicity, high biocompatibility. Most importantly, we successfully demonstrated bioimaging using these luminescent carbonaceous nanoparticles with excitation dependent luminescence. In addition, the microwave-assisted hydrothermal method can be extended to convert other biomass into functional nanomaterials.