A facile hydrothermal method to synthesize fluorescent carbon dots for detecting iron

A new carbon source (mint) is proposed to prepare carbon dots with excellent photostability and strong photobleaching properties by one-step hydrothermal method. The average particle diameter for carbon dots is 5.0 nm, emitting blue luminescence, and the quantum yield is 4.5%. Fluorescence can be obviously quenched in Fe3+ solution. Further, A method based on fluorescence quenching of carbon dots for detecting Fe3+ is established, which has a linear range of 0.5∼100 μM with a detection limit of 0.104 μM. This may provide an easy and sensitive method for iron detection.