Green Synthesis of Blue Fluorescent P-doped Carbon Dots for the Selective Determination of Picric Acid in an Aqueous Medium

A fluorescence method for the determination of picric acid (PA) using phosphorus-doped carbon dots (P-CDs), synthesized from β-cyclodextrin and sodium pyrophosphate, is described. The P-CDs are very uniform and monodisperse with a diameter of about 2.8 nm. Under an excitation of 350 nm, the P-CDs emit bright blue fluorescence with an emission peak at 440 nm. The as-synthesized P-CDs serve as a sensitive, selective, and label-free fluorescent probe for the detection of PA. Based on an inner filter effect between PA and P-CDs, a linear response is obtained for PA from 0.1 to 10 μM with a detection limit of 82 nM. Finally, this sensing system has been demonstrated to have practicability for PA detection in the environmental water samples.