Fluorescent carbon quantum dots for food contaminants detection applications

Analyzing food composition and detecting contaminants is important for monitoring food quality and assessing public health risks. Traditional food analysis methods can meet laboratories' routine food analysis needs, but critical food safety situations require rapid, time-saving, and low-cost analytical technologies, including on-site, portable, and convenient test kits. As one of these methods, fluorescence analysis has great potential in food safety due to its outstanding features such as high sensitivity, simple operation, low cost, and fast result output. Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are innovative 0D carbon-based nanoparticles that have recently emerged as promising replacements for standard fluorescent materials. CQDs have many advantages over conventional fluorescent materials such as quantum dots, organic dyes, and metal nanoclusters, including easy preparation, non-blinking, low cytotoxicity, low cost, high resistance to photo-bleaching, and excellent biocompatibility. As a result, CQD-based fluorescence detection provides a useful analytical tool for analyzing food-related analytes. This review provides an overview of the state-of-the-art synthesis methods, CQD fluorescence properties, detection process, and design ideas for CQD-based fluorescence detectors for food analysis. The advantages and disadvantages of CQD-based fluorescence sensors for detecting food contaminants are also highlighted.