Carbon dots (CDs) are usually smaller than 10 nm in size, and are meticulously formulated and recently introduced nanomaterials, among the other types of carbon-based nanomaterials. They have gained significant attention and an incredible interest in the field of nanotechnology and biomedical science, which is merely due to their considerable and exclusive attributes; including their enhanced electron transferability, photobleaching and photo-blinking effects, high photoluminescent quantum yield, fluorescence property, resistance to photo-decomposition, increased electrocatalytic activity, good aqueous solubility, excellent biocompatibility, long-term chemical stability, cost-effectiveness, negligible toxicity, and acquaintance of large effective surface area-to-volume ratio. CDs can be readily functionalized owing to the abundant functional groups on their surfaces, and they also exhibit remarkable sensing features such as specific, selective, and multiplex detectability. In addition, the physico-chemical characteristics of CDs can be easily tunable based on their intended usage or application. In this comprehensive review article, we mainly discuss the classification of CDs, their ideal properties, their general synthesis approaches, and primary characterization techniques. More importantly, we update the readers about the recent trends of CDs in health care applications (viz., their substantial and prominent role in the area of electrochemical and optical biosensing, bioimaging, drug/gene delivery, as well as in photodynamic/photothermal therapy).

Carbon Dots: Classification, Properties, Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications in Health Care-An Updated Review (2018-2021).

State-of-the-art developments in carbon quantum dots (CQDs): Photo-catalysis, bio-imaging, and bio-sensing applications.

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in biomedical and clinical applications: A review

Carbon nanomaterials such as carbon quantum Dots (CQDs) and graphene quantum dots (GQDs) have been attracting a great deal of attention recently due to their unique properties in terms of electrical conductivity, thermal stability, mechanical strength, chemical resistance, photoluminescence, low cost, and facile surface functionalization. By virtue of their rapid electron transfer and large surface area, CQDs and GQDs are desirable in these electrochemical applications. Carbon nanomaterials are widely used in various applications, including semiconductors, photovoltaic energy storage, biomedicals, drug delivery, environmental sectors, supercapacitors, electrocatalysis, and energy conversion applications. However, energy storage and conversion techniques are developing rapidly as new promising approaches emerge to solve some of the unprecedented challenges in energy at a low cost and with a low environmental footprint. This review examines the advancement of CQDs in energy conversion applications, supercapacitors, solar cell applications, and electrocatalysis with their synthesis approach. 

Advance and prospect of carbon quantum dots synthesis for energy conversion and storage application: A comprehensive review

Carbon dots (CDs), a class of novel zero-dimensional nanomaterials, have recently emerged as excellent candidates for versatile applications in several fields due to their superior properties such as excellent photostability and biocompatibility, low cytotoxicity, small size, fluorescence, and ease of surface modification. The use of a more environmentally friendly source to produce high-quality CDs remains a crucial issue to be addressed. “Green” CDs have attracted a lot of attention recently and renewable biomass, especially waste biomass, is a good choice for large-scale CDs synthesis because it not only promotes outstanding properties, has excellent properties but also provides a green solution to balance waste management goals with those of the circular economy. Here, we highlight recent advances in green synthesis and formation mechanism of CDs from biomass, focusing on innovative one-pot hydrothermal and microwave processes. 

Recent advances in the synthesis of carbon dots from renewable biomass by high-efficient hydrothermal and microwave green approaches

Carbon dots (CDs) are a particularly useful type of fluorescent nanoparticle that demonstrate biocompatibility, resistance to photobleaching, as well as diversity in composition and characteristics amongst the different types available. There are two main morphologies of CDs: Disk-shaped with 1–3 stacked sheets of aromatic carbon rings and quasi-spherical with a core-shell arrangement having crystalline and amorphous properties. They can be synthesized from various potentially environmentally friendly methods including hydrothermal carbonization, microwaving, pyrolysis or combustion, and are then purified via one or more methods. CDs can have either excitation wavelength-dependent or -independent emission with each having their own benefits in microscopic fluorescent imaging. Some CDs have an affinity for a particular cell type, organelle or chemical. This property allows the CDs to be used as sensors in a biological environment and can even provide quantitative information if the quenching or intensity of their fluorescence is dependent on the concentration of the analyte. In addition to fluorescent imaging, CDs can also be used for other applications including drug delivery, quality control, photodynamic therapy, and photocatalysis.

A Review of Fluorescent Carbon Dots, Their Synthesis, Physical and Chemical Characteristics, and Applications.

Carbon dot (CD) nanoparticles offer tremendous advantages as fluorescent probes in bioimaging and biosensing; however, they lack specific affinity for biomolecules, limiting their practical applications in selective targeting. Nanoparticles with intrinsic affinity for a target have applications in imaging, cytometry, therapeutics, etc. Toward that end, we report the transferrin receptor (CD71) targeting CDs, synthesized for the first time. The formation of these particles is truly groundbreaking, as direct tuning of nanoparticle affinity was achieved by simple and careful precursor selection of a protein, which has the targeting characteristic of interest. We hypothesized that the retention of the original protein’s peptides on the nanoparticle surface provides the CDs with some of the function of the precursor protein, enabling selective binding to the protein’s receptor. This was confirmed with FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) data and subsequent affinity-based cell assays. These transferrin (Tf)-derived CDs have been shown to possess an affinity for CD71, a cancer biomarker that is ubiquitously expressed in nearly every cancer cell line due to its central role mediating the uptake of cellular iron. The CDs were tested using the human leukemia cell line HL60 and demonstrated the selective targeting of CD71 and specific triggering of transferrin-mediated endocytosis via clathrin-coated pits. The particle characterization results reflect a carbon-based nanoparticle with bright violet fluorescence and 7.9% quantum yield in aqueous solution. These unpresented CDs proved to retain the functional properties of the precursor protein. Indicating that this process can be repeated for other disease biomarkers for applications ranging from biosensing and diagnostic bioimaging to targeted therapeutics.

Cancer Cell Targeting Via Selective Transferrin Receptor Labeling Using Protein-Derived Carbon Dots

Fibronectin (FN) derived from human plasma has been used for the first time as the carbon precursor in the top-down, microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of nitrogen doped carbon dots (CDs). FN is a large glycoprotein primarily known for its roles in cell adhesion and cell growth. Due to these properties FN can be over expressed in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of some cancers allowing FN to be used as an indicator for the detection of cancerous cells over non-cancerous cells. These FN derived CDs display violet photoluminescence with UV excitation and appear to possess similar functional groups on their surface to their carbon precursor (–COOH and –NH2). This is believed to be due to the self-passivation of the CDs' nitrogen-containing surface functional groups during the heating process. These CDs were then used to stain MCF-7 and MDA-231 breast cancer cells and were observed to interact primarily with the cell membrane rather than intercalating into the cell like the many other types of CDs. This led to the hypothesis that the CDs are selectively binding to the FN overexpressed within the cancer cells' ECM via amide linkages. This is in agreement with the EDX and FTIR spectra of the FN CDs which indicate the presence of –COOH and nitrogen containing surface groups like –NH3. The inherent selectivity of the CDs combined with their ability to photoluminesce enables their use as a fluorophore for bioimaging applications.

/pdf/novel-synthesis-of-fibronectin-derived-photoluminescent-24rubhwl.pdf

Novel synthesis of fibronectin derived photoluminescent carbon dots for bioimaging applications

Dye-doped nanoparticles have been investigated as bright, fluorescent probes for localization-based super-resolution microscopy. Nanoparticle size is important in super-resolution microscopy to get an accurate size of the object of interest from image analysis. Due to their self-blinking behavior and metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF), Ag@SiO2 and Au@Ag@SiO2 nanoparticles have shown promise as probes for localization-based super-resolution microscopy. Here, several noble metal-based dye-doped core-shell nanoparticles have been investigated as self-blinking nanomaterial probes. It was observed that both the gold- and silver-plated nanoparticle cores exhibit weak luminescence under certain conditions due to the surface plasmon resonance bands produced by each metal, and the gold cores exhibit blinking behavior which enhances the blinking and fluorescence of the dye-doped nanoparticle. However, the silver-plated nanoparticle cores, while weakly luminescent, did not exhibit any blinking; the dye-doped nanoparticle exhibited the same behavior as the core fluorescent, but did not blink. Because of the blinking behavior, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) super-resolution analysis was able to be performed with performed on the gold core nanoparticles. A preliminary study on the use of these nanoparticles for localization-based super-resolution showed that these nanoparticles are suitable for use in STORM super resolution. Resolution enhancement was two times better than the diffraction limited images, with core sizes reduced to 15 nm using the hybrid Au–Ag cores. Graphical Abstract

Synthesis and Characterization of Dye-Doped Au@SiO2 Core-Shell Nanoparticles for Super-Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy

Fibronectin (FN) derived from human plasma has been used for the ﬁ rst time as the carbon precursor in the top-down, microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of nitrogen doped carbon dots (CDs). FN is a large glycoprotein primarily known for its roles in cell adhesion and cell growth. Due to these properties FN can be over expressed in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of some cancers allowing FN to be used as an indicator for the detection of cancerous cells over non-cancerous cells. These FN derived CDs display violet photoluminescence with UV excitation and appear to possess similar functional groups on their surface to their carbon precursor ( – COOH and – NH 2 ). This is believed to be due to the self-passivation of the CDs' nitrogen-containing surface functional groups during the heating process. These CDs were then used to stain MCF-7 and MDA-231 breast cancer cells and were observed to interact primarily with the cell membrane rather than intercalating into the cell like the many other types of CDs. This led to the hypothesis that the CDs are selectively binding to the FN overexpressed within the cancer cells' ECM via amide linkages. This is in agreement with the EDX and FTIR spectra of the FN CDs which indicate the presence of – COOH and nitrogen containing surface groups like – NH 3 . The inherent selectivity of the CDs combined with their ability to photoluminesce enables their use as a ﬂ uorophore for bioimaging applications.

Novel synthesis of ﬁ bronectin derived photoluminescent carbon dots for bioimaging applications † RSC

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