Old silver mirror in qualitative analysis with new shoots in quantification: Nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) as fluorescent probes for “off-on” sensing of formalin in food samples

Puttaraksa Naksen, Purim Jarujamrus, Wipark Anutrasakda, Vinich Promarak, Liyuan Zhang, Wei Shen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A novel fluorometric assay for selective and sensitive determination of formalin (FA) was developed based on nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) coupled with silver mirror reaction. N-CDs was synthesized using the hydrothermal method with the ethylene glycol and ammonia solution as carbon and nitrogen precursors, respectively. The detection principle was based on “off-on” fluorescence switching. Specifically, the fluorescence signal of N-CDs was first turned off after incorporating the Ag+ and Tollens’ reagents. Then, in the presence of FA, the Ag+ species on the N-CDs surface were reduced to Ag0 species and the fluorescence signal of N-CDs was switched back on. The fluorescence intensity due to the N-CDs signal linearly increased with the increasing FA concentrations in the range of 5–100 mg L−1, with the detection limit of 1.5 mg L−1. The proposed approach provides rapid, simple, sensitive, and selective detection of FA in various food samples.

Original languageEnglish
Article number122862
Number of pages9
JournalTalanta
Volume236
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2022

Keywords

  • Fluorometric assay
  • Formalin (FA)
  • Nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs)
  • Silver mirror reaction
  • Tollens' reagent

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