Carbon quantum dots for fluorescent detection of nitrite: A review.

NO is commonly found in foods and the environment, and excessive intake of NO poses serious hazards to human health. Thus, rapid and accurate assay of NO is of considerable significance. Traditional instrumental approaches for detection of NO faced with limitations of expensive instruments and complicated operations. Current gold standards for sensing NO are Griess assay and 2,3-diaminonaphthalene assay, which suffer from slow detection kinetics and bad water solubility. The newly emerged carbon quantum dots (CQDs) exhibit integrated merits including easy fabrication, low-cost, high quantum yield, excellent photostability, tunable emission behavior, good water solubility and low toxicity, which make CQDs be widely applied to fluorescent assay of NO. In this review, synthetic strategies of CQDs are briefly presented. Advances of CQDs for fluorescent detection of NO are systematically highlighted. Lastly, the challenges and perspectives in the field are discussed.