Facile synthesis of carbon nanodots from ethanol and their application in ferric(III) ion assay

Carbon nanodots are facilely prepared by an electrochemical synthesis approach, which is simple and ecofriendly. The products emit strong fluorescence without doping any heteroatoms. Moreover, the synthesized materials are successfully applied for the design of a Fe3+ assay method by detecting the ion induced fluorescence quenching effect. The experimental results verify a large detection range, high sensitivity and selectivity and fine practical utility. This proposed method shows a low limit of detection (0.04 mu M) and the detection duration is very short. The practicality of the method for the analysis of real water samples is validated with satisfactory results, which demonstrates its great potential use in environmental monitoring and biological analysis.