Yingbo Liu

Preparation of high-quality biocompatible carbon dots by extraction, with new thoughts on the luminescence mechanisms

Recently, carbon dots (CDs) have been among the most promising emerging fluorescent labels for cellular imaging. In this work, a new facile synthesis method was developed for fabricating CDs from polystyrene foam waste and common organic solvents. The CDs obtained have tunable emission from blue to orange and are expected to be of use for labeling different cellular structures simultaneously. Transmission electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, Raman spectra, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, UV-vis, and fluorescence spectrophotometry (PL) were employed to investigate the structures and luminescence properties of CDs. The highest quantum yield (QY) achieved was 36%. The mechanisms for the formation and luminescence of the CDs are analyzed. The ability of the solvent to disperse the CDs plays a very important role in the origin of PL. The type of organic solvent has an important influence on the position of emission peaks and the QY. Different emissive traps play the dominant role in the luminescence of carbon materials. Furthermore, a hemolysis assay was performed to evaluate the biocompatibility of these CDs in vitro. The biocompatibility of the CDs, even at very high doses, ensures their potential in biomedical applications.

Preparation of 3D graphene networks and a C dot grafted graphene hybrid by new methods for improving the photovoltaic performance of CdS/CdSe quantum dot sensitized solar cells

In this paper, we firstly report the preparation of 3D graphene networks (GNs) by sonication-free liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE) and C dot grafted graphene (CD–G) hybrids. The 3D GNs and CD–G hybrids were incorporated into TiO2 photoanodes for improving the photovoltaic performance of CdS/CdSe quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) due to their unique structures and excellent conductivities. When the amounts of incorporation are 1.6 wt% for GNs and 2.0 wt% for CD–G, η (photoelectric conversion efficiency) exhibited improvements from 4.04% to 4.37% and 4.69%, respectively. The remarkable improvements in η are predominantly ascribed to the fact that the electron transport from TiO2 to graphene decreased the probability of recombination of charge carriers and ultimately improved the photoelectric conversion efficiency. For CD–G/TiO2, the electron transport from C dots to graphene may strengthen the effect. This work demonstrates a possibility of fabricating superior photoanodes for enhancing the performances of QDSSCs by designing graphene nanoarchitectures with unique structures and morphologies as the dopants.