One-Step Hydrothermal Synthesis of Fluorescent Carbon Dots and Fe3+ Detection

Carbon dots (CDs) are of great significance for metal ion detection. Herein, CDs without surface functional groups were synthesized through a simple one-step hydrothermal method using 4,4'-bipyridine as the carbon source. The results showed that the synthesized CDs have good selectivity for Fe 3+ detection, and the CDs respond well to metal ions as Lewis bases. This detection method is unlikely to be affected by sewage systems because it has excellent sensitivity. The detection range for Fe 3+ concentrations is between 1.0 × 10 –8 and 1.0 × 10 2 mol/L, and the detection limit is 1.0 × 10 –8 mol/L.