Oil-Dispersible Green-Emitting Carbon Dots: New Insights on a Facile and Efficient Synthesis

Carbon dots (CDs) have been progressively attracting interest as novel environmentally friendly and cost-effective luminescent nanoparticles, for implementation in light-emitting devices, solar cells, photocatalytic devices and biosensors. Here, starting from a cost-effective bottom-up synthetic approach, based on a suitable amphiphilic molecule as carbon precursor, namely cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), green-emitting CDs have been prepared at room temperature, upon treatment of CPC with concentrated NaOH solutions. The investigated method allows the obtaining, in one-pot, of both water-dispersible (W-CDs) and oil-dispersible green-emitting CDs (O-CDs). The study provides original insights into the chemical reactions involved in the process of the carbonization of CPC, proposing a reliable mechanism for the formation of the O-CDs in an aqueous system. The ability to discriminate the contribution of different species, including molecular fluorophores, allows one to properly single out the O-CDs emission. In addition, a mild heating of the reaction mixture, at 70 °C, has demonstrated the ability to dramatically decrease the very long reaction time (i.e. from tens of hours to days) at room temperature, allowing us to synthesize O-CDs in a few tens of minutes while preserving their morphological and optical properties.