Highly Sensitive and Selective Detection of Amoxicillin Using Carbon Quantum Dots Derived from Beet.

In the present work, we synthesized the carbon quantum dots (CQDs) by one step hydrothermal method using the dried beet powder as the carbon source without additional chemical reagents and functionalization. The as-prepared CQDs are quasi-spherical carbon nanoparticles with diameters of 4-8 nm as well as surface functional groups such as carboxyl and hydroxyl groups, and exhibit good water-solubility, biocompatibility, and strong fluorescence. It is confirmed that amoxicillin (AMO) could enhance the fluorescent intensity of CQDs, the I/I0 showed a linear correlation between the intensity of fluorescence and the concentration of AMO in a broad range. These superior properties render a potential application of the CQDs in biomedical.

Synthesis and antibacterial activity of silver@carbon nanocomposites.

In this work, hollow multiple-Ag-nanoclustes- C-shell nanocomposites (Ag@C) were synthesized by using silane coupling agent to graft carbon dots (CDs) with silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). CDs act as coating and stabilizing agent, protecting AgNPs from aggregation and oxidation. The resulting Ag@C nanocomposites demonstrate strong bactericidal effect against both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria in the disk diffusion test. Cellular toxicity evaluation was performed using MTT assay. Meanwhile, the as-prepared Ag@C nanocomposites show a good biocompatibility.