Facile synthesis of orange fluorescence carbon dots with excitation independent emission for pH sensing and cellular imaging

High-efficient orange fluorescence nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs) were facilely prepared from P-phenylenediamine as a precursor via hydrothermal method. The as-prepared N-CDs with an average diameter of 3.65 nm displayed excitation-independent emission at 590 nm. The N-CDs demonstrated a remarkable fluorescence enhancement behavior with the increase of pH. A sigmoidal curve was well fitted using BiDoseResp equation with pKa1 3.57 and pKa2 6.01, which can be ascribed to the unique surface properties of N-CDs. Two-segment linear ranges of 2.6-4.6 and 5.0-6.8 broaden the response range to pH of the orange-emission N-CDs to some extent. The confocal fluorescent microscopic images of SMMC7721 cells were performed successfully, which demonstrating that N-CDs possess exceptional cell membrane permeability and can implement as biosensing platform to monitor pH fluctuations in living cells.