N-doped carbon dots from pericarpium citri reticulatae for wide linear range sensing of hydroquinone

Hydroquinone (H2Q) present in water is becoming a growing problem in both daily life and industry, with various harmful effects on human health. Therefore, the detection of H2Q is very important. The Carbon dot-based sensor is considered an effective method to detect H2Q. In this work, Pericarpium citri reticulatae carbon dots (P-CDs) were synthesized by a one-pot hydrothermal method for wide linear sensing of H2Q. An orthogonal test was used to expand the active site and fluorescence properties of P-CDs. Under optimal conditions, the P-CDs exhibit an extremely stable blue fluorescence and a quantum yield (QY) of up to 15.4%. In the range of 5–1000 μM, compared with the currently reported carbon dot-based H2Q sensors, the fluorescence intensity (FL) of P-CDs shows good linearity with the variation of H2Q concentration and a higher linear range. Moreover, the sensor demonstrates a low detection limit of 0.058 μM. The possible detection mechanism is based on the synergistic action of static quenching and IFE. This method has been successfully applied to the determination of H2Q in real samples, and the P-CDs-based sensor has the potential to detect H2Q in various complex scenes.