Green synthesis of carbon dots and their application as fluorescent probes for rutin detection

Rutin has antioxidant, antitumor, antibacterial, antiviral, anti-aging, and analgesic effects, and it is a drug used to treat various circulatory disorders. However, rutin overdosage can seriously harm the health. The rutin detection method has drawbacks, including expensive costs, low sensitivity, and complicated steps. Therefore, given that carbon dots have superior fluorescence characteristics, the development of nanofluorescent probes for rutin detection is the research motivation of this article. N-CDs and N, B-CDs were produced by a hydrothermal approach using o-phenylenediamine, glucose, urea, and boron oxide, commonly available in the laboratory. The morphology and composition of CDs have been analyzed. According to the findings, the surfaces of the N-CDs and N, B-CDs were abundant in functional groups that contained oxygen, and they were spherical, uniform in size, and well distributed, which is beneficial for enhancing its fluorescence response to the detection object. In addition, two kinds of CDs emit bright yellow and blue-green fluorescence under the ultraviolet lamp at 365 nm. Rutin was detected in solution using synthesized N-CDs and N, B-CDs as fluorescent probes. Rutin was discovered to have a fluorescence quenching effect on N-CDs and N, B-CDs. Within a specific concentration range, the N-CDs and N, B-CDs fluorescence intensities demonstrated an excellent linear relationship with the rutin concentration, and the corresponding correlation coefficients R² were 0.9897 and 0.9409, respectively. To verify the detection accuracy of the experiment, we used the random forest algorithm to predict the detection model. The results showed that the experimental and predicted values were coincident, suggesting the possibility of using N-CDs and N, B-CDs as fluorescent probes to detect rutin. This work offers experimental procedures and data references to create doping CDs with superior fluorescence qualities. It broadens the use of doped CDs in the detection of rutin.