N-doped photoluminescent carbon dots from water hyacinth for tumour detection. (2020) - Paul, Anju
Abstract: Early diagnosis of life intimidating diseases such as cancer could drop down the mortality rate to a great extent. Carbon dots, being fluorescent materials hold a promising impact on the field of biomedicine. Herein, we report a single step, facile hydrothermal method for the synthesis of surface passivated, water soluble, spherical, fluorescent nitrogen doped carbon dots (N-CDs) from water hyacinth. From FT-IR and Raman Spectroscopic studies, surface functionalization was identified and nitrogen doping was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Optical properties were investigated by UV–Visible spectrophotometer and Fluorescence spectrometer and found that maximum fluorescence peak is located in the UV region. Amorphous nature of N-CDs was identified by X-ray diffraction. High resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy was used to study the morphological characteristics. The average size of N-CDs was found to be 6.2 nm. Anti-cancerous activity of the as-prepared carbon dots was examined against DLA tumour cells extracted from the peretonial cavity of mice and these tumour cells were not able to withstand at the increased concentration of carbon dots. The findings of our study prove the multifunctional ability of carbon dots to serve as optical probes in bioimaging applications.