Biobased carbon dots production via hydrothermal conversion of microalgae Chlorella pyrenoidosa.

Jingmiao Zhang, Ao Xia, Huize Chen, Abdul-Sattar Nizami, Yun Huang, Xianqing Zhu, Xun Zhu, Qiang Liao

The Science of the total environment 2022 Sep 15

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A promising green hydrothermal process was used to produce biobased nanomaterials carbon dots (CDs) by using microalgae Chlorella pyrenoidosa (CP) and its main model compounds (i.e., glucose, glycine, and octadecanoic acid). The possible reaction pathway including hydrolysis, Amadori rearrangement, cyclization/aromatization, and polymerization was first proposed for the hydrothermal process to produce microalgae-based CDs. Interactions among carbohydrates and proteins in microalgae were vital intermediate reactions in the generation of CDs. The mass yield of CDs reached 7.2% when the CP was hydrothermally treated with 20:1 of liquid-to-solid ratio at 230 °C for 6 h. It was confirmed that nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorous, and potassium were doped onto CP-based CDs (CD-CP) successfully without additional reagents or treatments. The CD-CP yield was 4.0-24.3 times higher than that of model compound-based CDs. Regarding morphology, CD-CP was constituted by many spherical nanoparticles smaller than 20 nm. These CDs emitted blue fluorescence under ultraviolet light, and the fluorescence quantum yield of CD-CP was 4.7-9.4 times higher than that of CP model compound-based CDs. Last, CD-CP displayed broad application prospects as a sensor for Fe3+ detection in wastewater with high sensitivity. Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Jingmiao Zhang, Ao Xia, Huize Chen, Abdul-Sattar Nizami, Yun Huang, Xianqing Zhu, Xun Zhu, Qiang Liao. Biobased carbon dots production via hydrothermal conversion of microalgae Chlorella pyrenoidosa. The Science of the total environment. 2022 Sep 15;839:156144