Detection of tartrazine with fluorescence sensor from crayfish shell carbon quantum dots

Abstract

As a typical water-soluble synthetic azo pigment, tartrazine is widely used in food products, and its abuse was harmful to our health. Hence, it is very important to establish a facile and economical method to detect the tartrazine content in food. In the current study, the crayfish shell carbon quantum dots (CS-CQDs) were prepared through a facile hydrothermal approach from crayfish shells. The CS-CQDs exhibited strong fluorescent emissions at 462 nm under the excitation wavelength of 380 nm. The CS-CQDs were demonstrated to react with the synthetic pigments tartrazine selectively and effectively with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.48 μM in the linear range of 0–70 μM. The Stern-Volmer equation and thermodynamic analysis revealed that the fluorescence quenching was a spontaneous static quenching and mainly driven by van der Waals interactions and hydrogen bonds. Furthermore, the CS-CQDs sensor was applied in energy beverage and durian candy samples with acceptable recovery of 92.7–104.5% and low RSD. Finally, we successfully designed a fluorescent test strip using CS-CQDs and filter paper. The current CS-CQDs had the potential ability to construct a simple paper strip for the detection of tartrazine in the future, which was useful for the food industry.