Composite Material Based on Carbon Dots and Molecularly Imprinted Polymers: A Facile Probe for Fluorescent Detection of 4-Nitrophenol

A new fluorescence composite material for the sensitive and selective determination of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) was developed based on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) incorporated with carbon dots (CDs). First, fluorescent CDs with a high quantum yield (QY) of 51.8% were prepared by hydrothermal synthesis method by using anhydrous citric acid as carbon source and AEAPMS as surface modifier. Then, CDs were fabricated with MIPs (CDs@MIPs) by sol–gel method using 4-NP as template, (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) as functional monomer, tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as cross-linker and CDs as signal sources, respectively. The CDs@MIPs exhibited strong fluorescence property and high selectivity to 4-NP as it incorporated merits of CDs and MIPs. Under optimized conditions, the relative fluorescence intensity of CDs@MIPs decreased linearly with the concentration of 4-NP from 0.025[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text]mL[Formula: see text] to 5[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]g[Formula: see text]mL[Formula: see text]. The limit of detection (LOD) of 4-NP was 5[Formula: see text]ng[Formula: see text]mL[Formula: see text] (35[Formula: see text]nM). Specificity and selectivity experiments showed that CDs@MIPs can selectively detect 4-NP with rare interference of other competitive analogs and metal ions. Finally, CDs@MIPs was successfully used to detect 4-NP in river water samples with the recoveries ranging from 94.0% to 103.4%. The results demonstrated that the prepared CDs@MIPs can be applied to the selective and sensitive detection of trace 4-NP in real samples.