Biomass-derived carbon dots as an emergent antibacterial agent

The biomass-derived Cdots have several advantages over chemically routed synthesized Cdots for promising biological applications. Biomass-derived Cdots are synthesized from medicinally important natural products, suitable for sustainable applications, and biomass offers an excellent carbon source. The bacterial multi-drug resistance has become a serious threat to human health. Hence, the development of biomass-derived Cdots as potential antibacterial agents could be an alternative to presently available antibiotics (or metallodrugs and metal nanoparticles) in primary and secondary care. Herein, we report a rapid microwave-mediated synthesis method of figs-derived (Ficus religiosa tree) red emissive Cdots as a bactericidal agent. The formation of figs-derived Cdots was characterized using various techniques such as Uv-visible spectroscopy, photoluminescence spectroscopy, TRPL, FTIR, TEM, and XPS. The figs-derived Cdots showed superior antibacterial activity against ampicillin-resistant Gram-negative strain of E. coli (DH5α) and tetracyclin-resistant Gram-positive strain of B. subtilis (MTCC 121) than the figs extracted product which has inherent antibacterial activity. The NBT assay revealed that the bacterial cell death might be due to ROS-mediated, which was further confirmed by the SEM study. This study might provide an opportunity to develop biomass-derived Cdots as a novel antibacterial agent to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections.