One-pot alkali cutting-assisted synthesis of fluorescence tunable amino-functionalized graphene quantum dots as a multifunctional nanosensor for sensing of pH and tannic acid

Abstract Herein, a one-pot alkali cutting-assisted synthesis approach has been developed to gain fluorescence (FL) tunable amino functionalized GQDs (NH2-GQDs), which exhibit concentration- and excitation-dependent FL behaviors, due to the self-assembled J-type aggregation effect and different electronic transitions governed by graphene basal plane and functional groups. While NH2-GQDs possess brighter FL emission than pristine GQDs, owning to the functionalization of amino groups with strong electron withdrawing ability. Particularly, the pH-dependent FL behavior of NH2-GQDs further reflects the FL emission mechanism originated from the intrinsic zigzag sites and introduced amino and carboxylic groups, which is available for pH sensing. Moreover, the NH2-GQDs also show a FL quenching upon reaction with tannic acid (TA), resulting in the construction of a FL turn-off TA sensing platform. A good linear relationship is obtained between logarithm of FL intensity (log F) and TA concentration in a linear dynamic range of 1–40 μM and a limit of detection of 43.3 nM (3σ/s, n = 9) is achieved, with a precision of 0.08% RSD at a concentration level of 5 μM (n = 9). This work features a simple and direct approach to acquire multifunctional nanosensor, providing great potential for further applications in chem/biosensing.