Determination of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol by in-situ assembly of SBA-15 with multi-hydroxyl carbon dots

A novel composite fluorescent probe (SCDs) was synthesized by forming a covalent bond between mesoporous SBA-15 functionalized with 3-glycidyloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (SBA-15/560) and multi-hydroxyl carbon dots (CDs). The composite probe not only presented excellent fluorescence properties of multi-hydroxyl CDs but highly ordered structure of mesopores as well. Subsequently, the composite fluorescent probe was used for 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP) detection. It was found that the composite fluorescent probe had a selective and sensitive response towards TNP. The results of the TNP assay show that the composite fluorescent probe exhibits two wide linear regions in the range of 1–8 and 10–70 μM with a low limit detection of 0.17 μM, which is lower than that of free CDs for TNP (0.3 μM). The analysis of real water samples confirmed that the composite probe could be used as a promising sensor for TNP detection.