A fundamental study on the surface binding isotherms of carbon dots bound with heavy metal ions in view of its potential as innovative optical sensing receptors

Carbon dots (CDs) is an emerging fluorescent nanomaterial that attracted tremendous research attention due to their superior properties such as highly biocompatible, excellent photostability and ease in functionalization. This research was conducted to produce CDs from sustainable carbon precursors, followed by surface functionalization and finally to establish the relationship between binding affinities with the change in optical properties. The findings had proven that better interaction between surface functionalized CDs and targeted metal ions resulted in better binding affinity, leading to significant change in optical signal. This correlation could be potentially used for development of CDs as metal ions sensing receptors.