Water Safety for Human Health: Detection of Pollutants by Blue-Emission Carbon Quantum Dots via Three Modes in Different Polluted Water Bodies

Water quality directly affects human health. It is very important to design a probe that can detect the pollutants in water. In this study, we synthesized one kind of carbon dots (CDs), which could emit strong blue fluorescence. The blue fluorescence could be quenched by 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP) ascribed to the energy transfer (ET), could be quenched by lemon yellow (LY) ascribed to inner filter effect (IFE), and could be quenched by HClO ascribed to surface passivation (SP). TNP, LY, and HClO are common contaminants in water. By our experiment, it was proved that the synthesized CDs are a safe and effective fluorescent material and could be used to detect the pollutants (TNP, LY, and HClO) in the actual water sample.