Boron and nitrogen co-doped carbon dots as a sensitive fluorescent probe for the detection of curcumin

In this present study, a fluorescent probe was developed to detect curcumin, which is derived from the rhizomes of the turmeric. We used a simple and economical way to synthesize boron and nitrogen co-doped carbon dots (BNCDs) by microwave heating. The maximum emission wavelength of the BNCDs was 450 nm at an excitation wavelength of 360 nm. The as-prepared BNCDs were characterized by multiple analytical techniques such as transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and infrared spectroscopy. The synthesized carbon nanoparticles had an average particle diameter of 4.23 nm. The BNCDs exhibited high sensitivity to the detection of curcumin at ambient conditions. The changes of BNCDs fluorescent intensity show a good linear relationship with the curcumin concentrations in the range 0.2–12.5 μM. This proposed method has been successfully applied to detect the curcumin in urine samples with the recoveries of 96.5–105.5%.