Light-induced synthesis of photoluminescent carbon nanoparticles for Fe3+ sensing and photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

We report a new method to prepare photoluminescent carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) by a light-induced process. The obtained CNPs are sensitive to the specific detection of Fe3+ with a detection limit of 0.55 ppm. CNPs also show excellent photocatalytic hydrogen production under xenon lamp irradiation. The hydrogen evolution rate is up to 4.89 μmol h−1 over 2.1 mg CNPs.