One-step synthesis of self-quenching-resistant biomass-based solid-state fluorescent carbon dots with high yield for white lighting emitting diodes

A strategy, based on introducing steric hindrance, has been designed to prepare biomass-based solid-state fluorescent carbon dots (SSF-CDs) with high yield (~100%) via one-pot hydrothermal reaction of dehydroabietic acid and ethanolamine. The obtained SSF-CDs emitted bright light-yellow fluorescence under UV light, were resistant to aggregation-caused quenching and had a photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 10%. Further, the structural composition and optical properties of the SSF-CDs were investigated in detail, which contained a graphitic carbon core, a sterically hindered non-planar tricyclic phenanthrene skeleton and a variety of functional groups, simultaneously. The sterically hindered phenanthrene skeleton efficiently suppressed π-π interactions between carbon cores in the SSF-CDs, thus enabled solid-state emission. Importantly, the biomass-based SSF-CDs can be used as the color conversion layer in a white light-emitting diode (WLED), with CIE coordinates of (0.3304, 0.3055), CCT of 5608 K and CRI of 88.6.