Facile Synthesis of Aminated Graphene Quantum Dots for Promising and Selective Detection of Cobalt and Copper Ions in Aqueous Media

Due to the rapid development of industrialization, various environmental problems such as water resource pollution are gradually emerging, among which heavy metal pollution is harmful to both human beings and the environment. As a result, there are many metal ion detection methods, among which fluorescence detection stands out because of its rapid, sensitive, low cost and non-toxic characteristics. In recent years, graphene quantum dots have been widely used and studied due to their excellent properties such as high stability, low toxicity and water solubility, and have a broad prospect in the field of metal ion detection. A novel high fluorescence Cu(2+), Co(2+) sensing probe produced by graphene quantum hydrothermal treatment is reported. After heat treatment with hydrazine hydrate, the small-molecule precursor nitronaphthalene synthesized by self-nitrification was transformed from blue fluorescent GQDs to green fluorescent amino-functionalized N–GQDs. Compared with other metal ions, N–GQDs are more sensitive to Cu(2+) and Co(2+) on the surface, and N–GQDs have much higher selectivity to Cu(2+) and Co(2+) than GQDs. The strategy proposed here is simple and economical in design.