Nitrogen@Carbon Quantum Dots for Fluorescence Detection of L-alanine, L-methionine and L-cysteine

Nitrogen@Carbon quantum dots (N@CQDs) are prepared using microwave hydrothermal method, and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and melamine are used as mixed C source and N source. Microwave reaction conditions of preparing the N@CQDs are 170 ℃ and 3 h. This N@CQDs are are used as fluorescence probe for detection of amino acids. The N@CQDs can recognize L-alanine in water solution, and simultaneously recognize both L-methionine and L-cysteine in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solution. The linear ranges for L-alanine, L-methionine and L-cysteine are 0–15 µM, 2–50 µM and 0–17 µM, respectively. While limits of detection (LOD) for them are 11.092 nM, 7.8067 nM and 0.67476 nM, respectively. Compared to presently available detection methods, as-prepared N@CQDs have the advantage of high sensitivity and selectivity. Furthermore, coexistence of other amino acids has minimal interference in the detection of L-alanine, L-methionine and L-cysteine. For the as-prepared N@CQDs, solvent plays important roles in influencing the identification of amino acid types and detection sensitivity.