One-pot synthesis of carbon dots using two different acids and their respective unique photoluminescence property.

Carbon dots, a new class of nanomaterial with unique optical property and have great potential in various applications. This work demonstrated the possibility of tuning the emission wavelength of carbon dots by simply changing the acid type used during synthesis. In particular, sulfuric and phosphoric acids and a mixture of the two were used to carbonize the same starting precursor, sucrose. This resulted in the isolation of carbon dots with blue (440 nm) and green (515 nm) emission. Interestingly, the use of an acid mixture at various ratios did not shift the initial emission profile, but did obviously alter the fluorescence efficiency of the peaks. This clearly showed that acid type can be used as an alternative tool to produce carbon dots that have different emissions using the same starting precursor. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A unique "turn-on" fluorescence signalling strategy for highly specific detection of ascorbic acid using carbon dots as sensing probe.

Carbon dots (CDs) that showed strong blue fluorescence were successfully synthesised from sodium alginate via furnace pyrolysis. The single step pyrolytic synthesis was simple to perform while yielded CDs with high photostability, good water solubility and minimum by-products. In order to design the probe with "turn-on" sensing capability, the CDs were screened against a series of metal cations to first "turn-off" the fluorescence. It was found that ferric ions (Fe(3+)) were most responsive and effective in quenching the fluorescence of CDs. Based on this observation, the conditioning of the probe was performed to ensure the fluorescence was completely quenched, while not overloading the system with Fe(3+). At the optimised condition, the CDs-Fe(3+) mixture served as a highly specific detection probe for ascorbic acid (AA). The analytical potential of the probe was evaluated and showed a good linear range of response for AA concentration of 24-40µg/mL. The selectivity study against other possible co-existing species was carried out and proved that our unique "turn-on" fluorescence signalling strategy was highly effective and selective towards AA as the target analyte. The probe was demonstrated for quantification of AA in real samples, which was the commercially available vitamin C supplement. The result showed good accuracy with minimum deviation from standard method adopted for validation purpose.

Synthesis of fluorescent carbon dots via simple acid hydrolysis of bovine serum albumin and its potential as sensitive sensing probe for lead (II) ions.

Carbon dots have great potential to be utilised as an optical sensing probe due to its unique photoluminescence and less toxic properties. This work reports a simple and novel synthesis method of carbon dots via direct acid hydrolysis of bovine serum albumin protein in a one-pot approach. Optimisation of the important synthetic parameters has been performed which consists of temperature effect, acid to protein ratio and kinetics of reaction. Higher temperature has promoted better yield with shorter reaction time. The carbon dots obtained shows a strong emission at the wavelength of 400 nm with an optimum excitation of 305 nm. The potential of the carbon dots as optical sensing probe has been investigated on with different cations that are of environmental and health concern. The fluorescence of the carbon dots was significantly quenched particularly by lead (II) ions in a selective manner. Further analytical study has been performed to leverage the performance of the carbon dots for lead (II) ions sensing using the standard Stern-Volmer relationship. The sensing probe has a dynamic linear range up to 6.0 mM with a Stern-Volmer constant of 605.99 M(-1) and a limit of detection (LOD) of 5.05 µM. The probe performance was highly repeatable with a standard deviation below 3.0%. The probe suggested in this study demonstrates the potential of a more economical and greener approach that uses protein based carbon dots for sensing of heavy metal ions.

Integrated miniature fluorescent probe to leverage the sensing potential of ZnO quantum dots for the detection of copper (II) ions.

Quantum dots are fluorescent semiconductor nanoparticles that can be utilised for sensing applications. This paper evaluates the ability to leverage their analytical potential using an integrated fluorescent sensing probe that is portable, cost effective and simple to handle. ZnO quantum dots were prepared using the simple sol-gel hydrolysis method at ambient conditions and found to be significantly and specifically quenched by copper (II) ions. This ZnO quantum dots system has been incorporated into an in-house developed miniature fluorescent probe for the detection of copper (II) ions in aqueous medium. The probe was developed using a low power handheld black light as excitation source and three photo-detectors as sensor. The sensing chamber placed between the light source and detectors was made of 4-sided clear quartz windows. The chamber was housed within a dark compartment to avoid stray light interference. The probe was operated using a microcontroller (Arduino Uno Revision 3) that has been programmed with the analytical response and the working algorithm of the electronics. The probe was sourced with a 12 V rechargeable battery pack and the analytical readouts were given directly using a LCD display panel. Analytical optimisations of the ZnO quantum dots system and the probe have been performed and further described. The probe was found to have a linear response range up to 0.45 mM (R(2)=0.9930) towards copper (II) ion with a limit of detection of 7.68×10(-7) M. The probe has high repeatable and reliable performance.

Molecularly imprinted polymers as optical sensing receptors: correlation between analytical signals and binding isotherms.

Despite the increasing number of usage of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) in optical sensor application, the correlation between the analytical signals and the binding isotherms has yet to be fully understood. This work investigates the relationship between the signals generated from MIPs sensors to its respective binding affinity variables generated using binding isotherm models. Two different systems based on the imprinting of metal ion and organic compound have been selected for the study, which employed reflectance and fluorescence sensing schemes, respectively. Batch binding analysis using the standard binding isotherm models was employed to evaluate the affinity of the binding sites. Evaluation using the discrete bi-Langmuir isotherm model found both the MIPs studied have generally two classes of binding sites that was of low and high affinities, while the continuous Freundlich isotherm model has successfully generated a distribution of affinities within the investigated analytical window. When the MIPs were incorporated as sensing receptors, the changes in the analytical signal due to different analyte concentrations were found to have direct correlation with the binding isotherm variables. Further data analyses based on this observation have generated robust models representing the analytical performance of the optical sensors. The best constructed model describing the sensing trend for each of the sensor has been tested and demonstrated to give accurate prediction of concentration for a series of spiked analytes.

An enzyme-modulated oxygen-producing micro-system for regenerative therapeutics.

This study suggests the idea of treating oxygen as a drug in a biological environment and demonstrates that it will exhibit a dosage-dependent trend. To accomplish this, a micro-system was fabricated, having hydrogen peroxide as the oxygen-generating source, which was decomposed using catalase, a common enzyme found in nearly all living organisms. The relevance of the proposed micro-system was justified using cell viability assays under well-controlled and fixed conditions. This study was performed under two controlled conditions, normoxia and hypoxia, and tests were carried out using three different configurations of samples under each condition: direct addition of H(2)O(2), H(2)O(2) encapsulated with single layer, and H(2)O(2) encapsulated with double layers. This study demonstrates that the elegantly designed micro-system managed to control the decomposition of H(2)O(2) and avoided direct contact with cells, while also maintaining cell viability under a low oxygen environment.

Novel microencapsulation of potential drugs with low molecular weight and high hydrophilicity: hydrogen peroxide as a candidate compound.

Microencapsulation of drugs into solid biodegradable polymeric microspheres via solvent evaporation technique remains challenging especially with those having low molecular weight and high hydrophilicity nature. This paper presents an efficient encapsulation protocol for this group of drugs, demonstrated using hydrogen peroxide as a model compound that is encapsulated into poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) microspheres. Hydrogen peroxide can be employed as antiseptic agent or its decomposed form into oxygen can be useful in various pharmaceutical applications. The new encapsulation technique was developed based on the modification of conventional double emulsion and solvent evaporation protocol with a backward concentration gradient of hydrogen peroxide. This was achieved by adding and controlling the concentration of hydrogen peroxide at the continuous phase during the solidification stage of the microspheres. Parameters involved in the production and the formulation aspect were optimized to achieve the best protocol having controlled efficiency of encapsulation that is simple, safe, practical, and economical. Evaluation on the encapsulation efficiency and the release profile has been made indirectly by monitoring the dissolved oxygen level of the solution where the microspheres were incubated. Morphology of the microspheres was investigated using scanning electron microscopy. This proposed method has successfully used to prepare batches of microspheres having different encapsulation efficiencies and its potential applications have been demonstrated accordingly.

Fluorescence sensor using a molecularly imprinted polymer as a recognition receptor for the detection of aluminium ions in aqueous media.

This paper describes the investigation of a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) as a sensing receptor for Al(3+) ion detection by using an optical approach. Al(3+) ion was adopted as the template molecule and 8-hydroxyquinoline sulfonic acid ligand as the fluorescence tag. The polymer was synthesised using acrylamide as monomer, 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate as co-monomer and ethylene glycol dimethracylate as cross-linker. The free radical polymerisation was performed in methanol and initiated by 2,2'-azobisisobutyronitrile at 70 degrees C. The imprinted polymer was fluorometrically characterised using a fibre optic attachment in a self-designed flow-cell. NaF was used to leach the Al(3+) ion from the MIP. The optimum pH for the rebinding of Al(3+) ion with the leached polymer was found to be pH 5 and the fluorescence response was found to be stable within the buffer strength range of 0.05-0.10 M. The fluorescence intensity during Al(3+) ion rebinding was inversely dependent on temperature, and a low interference response (<3%) toward metal ions except for Cu(2+) and Zn(2+) ions was observed. The polymer rebinding repeatability study conducted over 9 cycles with Al(3+) ion (0.8 x 10(-4) M) was found to give an RSD value of 2.82% with a standard deviation of 0.53. The dynamic range of the system was found to be linear up to 1.0 x 10(-4) M Al(3+) ion with a limit of detection of 3.62 microM.