Salam all. according to the reported work in the literature, some authors used strong acid (like refluxing with HNo3) in conjugation with carbon-based precursor, while others used base such as NaOH. It is well known that base can act as corrosive agent to accelerate the breakdown process of carbonaceous materials and at the same time provide CDs with OH groups. So what is the advantages of using strong acid? which one is more favorable to enhance the fluorescent quantum yield of CDs , acid or base?
It can really depend on the precursors that are being used to create the C-Dots. In general, nitric acid is a powerful oxidiser, which modifies the carbon surface to create a surface charge, enabling the particle be dispersed in water. Also nitrogen is considered important to the optical properties of the particle and nitration of the precursor may lead to increased nitrogen incorporation in the C-Dot.
caLAm
actually, strong acids are not necessary to produce normal blue fluorescent C dots. the main reason for using strong acids and bases or trying new precursors is to improve QY and photo-stability or engineering the emitted and adsorbed light to reach the NIR region. to achieve this goal it is needed to work on the C dot inner structure.
I am working on the same area and I found this recently published review paper amazingly useful, all recent studies are summarized and very good mechanism explanations are gathered. hope you can use this article to understand the mechanism better.
Article Red carbon dots: Optical property regulations and applications
The benzene ring (the basis of carbon tubes) has weak donor properties when interacting with a prton and weak acceptor properties when interacting with hydroxyl groups. This affects the electronic carbon tube system.
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