Large scale electrochemical synthesis of high quality carbon nanodots and their photocatalytic property

• DOI: 10.1039/c2dt30985h
• Publication Date: 2012-06-01T08:36:08Z
• Authors: Hai Ming; Zheng Ma; Yang Liu; Keming Pan; Hang Yu; Fang Wang; Zhenhui Kang
• Keywords: 02 engineering and technology; 0210 nano-technology; 7. Clean energy

High quality carbon nanodots (C-dots) with high purity were synthesized through a mild, one-step electrochemical approach, without the assistance of any chemicals but only pure water. This high productivity method makes the synthetic process of C-dots synthesis both economical as well as environment-friendly. The as prepared C-dots are predominantly multi-layer graphene oxide, with luminescence and high up-conversion photoluminescence (emission of light at shorter wavelengths than the excitation wavelength). Meanwhile, C-dots showed peroxidise mimetic function and visible-light-sensitive photocatalytic activity for methyl orange degradation. In addition, a novel photocatalyst (TiO(2)/C-dots) was obtained by combining C-dots with TiO(2) through an easy hydrothermal method. Remarkably, TiO(2)/C-dots exhibited an excellent visible-light photocatalytic activity.