Assembly of Carbon Dots into Frameworks with Enhanced Stability and Antibacterial Activity

Carbon dots (CDs) have been widely used as antimicrobials due to their active surface, but some CDs suffer instability. Therefore, the relative applications such as the antibacterial activity may not be reliable for long-term use. Herein, we synthesize CDs with blue fluorescence by a hydrothermal process. Thereafter, polyethylenimine was applied for the assembly of CDs into CDs-based frameworks (CDFs). The CDFs exhibited quenched fluorescence but showed more stable properties based on the scanning electron microscope and zeta potential investigations. Both CDs and CDFs show antibacterial activity toward Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), but CDFs exhibited better antibacterial performance, and S. aureus could be completely inhibited with the minimum inhibitory concentration of 30 μg/mL. This reveals CDFs magnify both the stability and antibacterial activity, which would be more promising for practical applications. GRAPHIC ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s11671-021-03582-3.