A state-of-the-art review on carbon quantum dots: Prospective, advances, zebrafish biocompatibility and bioimaging in vivo and bibliometric analysis

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are recently discovered, in the beginning, a few different types of synthesis are discussed in detail. These include the “top-down” synthetic approach (such as the electrochemical method, laser ablations, and biomass decompositions), the bottom-up approach (such as hydrothermal, microwave, and acidic oxidation), and CQD synthesis methods are derived from waste products. The zebrafish larvae and embryos' fluorescence emission was used to successfully observe the distribution of CQDs throughout the zebrafish life cycle. CQDs used as imaging and molecular probe were shown to have both a “low-toxicity” and “high-biocompatibility” by all the results. Distribution of CQD in zebrafish provided insight into their absorption, distribution, excretion, and metabolism route. The procedures about zebrafish are appropriate for investigating the biocompatibility, adverse effect, toxicity, and transport of nanomaterials, in addition to the screening of drugs using zebrafish as a model. Particular attention is paid to their synthesis, advancement, bibliometric analysis, and technical applications of bioimaging. The bibliometric analysis of title search results from 2011 to 2022 for keywords, nations; co-author networks, co-occurrence, and journals are visualizations using the Scopus database and RStudio software described. Data were extracted from a total of 1456 papers, 379 review articles, and 1377 article proceedings within 12 years (2011−2022).