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Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis

Carbon dots (CDs) have been progressively attracting interest as novel environmentally friendly and cost-effective luminescent nanoparticles, for implementation in light-emitting devices, solar cells, photocatalytic devices and biosensors. Here, starting from a cost-effective bottom-up synthetic app...

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Autores principales: Minervini, Gianluca, Panniello, Annamaria, Fanizza, Elisabetta, Agostiano, Angela, Curri, Maria Lucia, Striccoli, Marinella
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7503313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32842684
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma13173716
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author Minervini, Gianluca
Panniello, Annamaria
Fanizza, Elisabetta
Agostiano, Angela
Curri, Maria Lucia
Striccoli, Marinella
author_facet Minervini, Gianluca
Panniello, Annamaria
Fanizza, Elisabetta
Agostiano, Angela
Curri, Maria Lucia
Striccoli, Marinella
author_sort Minervini, Gianluca
collection PubMed
description Carbon dots (CDs) have been progressively attracting interest as novel environmentally friendly and cost-effective luminescent nanoparticles, for implementation in light-emitting devices, solar cells, photocatalytic devices and biosensors. Here, starting from a cost-effective bottom-up synthetic approach, based on a suitable amphiphilic molecule as carbon precursor, namely cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), green-emitting CDs have been prepared at room temperature, upon treatment of CPC with concentrated NaOH solutions. The investigated method allows the obtaining, in one-pot, of both water-dispersible (W-CDs) and oil-dispersible green-emitting CDs (O-CDs). The study provides original insights into the chemical reactions involved in the process of the carbonization of CPC, proposing a reliable mechanism for the formation of the O-CDs in an aqueous system. The ability to discriminate the contribution of different species, including molecular fluorophores, allows one to properly single out the O-CDs emission. In addition, a mild heating of the reaction mixture, at 70 °C, has demonstrated the ability to dramatically decrease the very long reaction time (i.e. from tens of hours to days) at room temperature, allowing us to synthesize O-CDs in a few tens of minutes while preserving their morphological and optical properties.
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spelling pubmed-75033132020-09-23 Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis Minervini, Gianluca Panniello, Annamaria Fanizza, Elisabetta Agostiano, Angela Curri, Maria Lucia Striccoli, Marinella Materials (Basel) Article Carbon dots (CDs) have been progressively attracting interest as novel environmentally friendly and cost-effective luminescent nanoparticles, for implementation in light-emitting devices, solar cells, photocatalytic devices and biosensors. Here, starting from a cost-effective bottom-up synthetic approach, based on a suitable amphiphilic molecule as carbon precursor, namely cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), green-emitting CDs have been prepared at room temperature, upon treatment of CPC with concentrated NaOH solutions. The investigated method allows the obtaining, in one-pot, of both water-dispersible (W-CDs) and oil-dispersible green-emitting CDs (O-CDs). The study provides original insights into the chemical reactions involved in the process of the carbonization of CPC, proposing a reliable mechanism for the formation of the O-CDs in an aqueous system. The ability to discriminate the contribution of different species, including molecular fluorophores, allows one to properly single out the O-CDs emission. In addition, a mild heating of the reaction mixture, at 70 °C, has demonstrated the ability to dramatically decrease the very long reaction time (i.e. from tens of hours to days) at room temperature, allowing us to synthesize O-CDs in a few tens of minutes while preserving their morphological and optical properties. MDPI 2020-08-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7503313/ /pubmed/32842684 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma13173716 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Minervini, Gianluca
Panniello, Annamaria
Fanizza, Elisabetta
Agostiano, Angela
Curri, Maria Lucia
Striccoli, Marinella
Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis
title Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis
title_full Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis
title_fullStr Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis
title_full_unstemmed Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis
title_short Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis
title_sort oil-dispersible green-emitting carbon dots: new insights on a facile and efficient synthesis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7503313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32842684
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma13173716
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