Construction of an off-on fluorescence system based on carbon dots for trace pyrophosphate sensing

A novel and simple fluorescence Off-On system is proposed for selective pyrophosphate (PPi) sensing in an aqueous solution. The method is constructed based on the strong blue emission of carbon dots (CDs) owing to its outstanding photoluminescence and easy synthesis, which has shown exciting potential in analytical and biological field. The fluorescence of CDs can be remarkably quenched by some transition metal ions such as Cu(2+), Ni(2+), Mn(2+) and Co(2+) due to the coordination reaction between metal ions and the carboxylic groups on the surface of CDs. When PPi was introduced to CDs-metal ion system the fluorescence of CDs was recovered regularly. The increment of fluorescence intensity was proportional with the concentration of PPi in the range of 1-200 μM and correspondingly the limit of detection was calculated as 0.32 μM according to the recommendation of IUPAC as 3.29 S B/m. The possible mechanism was discussed for the detection of PPi and the quenching reaction between CDs and metal ions. Furthermore, the proposed system was successfully used to monitor the content of PPi in water samples from artificial wetland.