One-pot solvothermal synthesis of highly photoluminescent carbon nanoparticles and their photocatalytic application

• DOI: 10.1016/j.matlet.2014.01.095
• Publication Date: 2014-01-24T21:31:50Z
• Authors: Feng Li; Guiyan Wang; Hongren Li; Yongbo Li; Shiqi Zhou
• Keywords: 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; 0104 chemical sciences

Abstract Luminescent carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) had shown great impact on bioimaging and environmental applications recently. Here an inexpensive but practical solovethermal method is developed to prepare CNPs using tartaric acid and ammoniumoxalate as starting materials in one-pot. This approach allows large-scale production of aqueous CNPs dispersions without any post-treatment process. The product CNPs have amorphous structures, with diameter of about 10–30 nm, exhibit an excitation-independent photoluminescence (PL) behavior. Meanwhile, CNPs showed UV-light sensitive photocatalytic activity for methylene blue (MB) degradation, indicating CNPs potential applications in environment or energy areas.