A label-free fluorescence nanosensor based on nitrogen and phosphorus co-doped carbon quantum dots for ultra-sensitive detection of new coccine in food samples

In this paper, an innovative method for the sensitive detection of new coccine using N, P-doped carbon quantum dots (N,P-CQDs) as fluorescent nanosensor is reported for the first time. The sensing mechanism is based on the fluorescence quenching of N,P-CQDs by new coccine through inner filter effect (IFE). N,P-CQDs were prepared by simple hydrothermal treatment of citric acid, phosphoric acid and ethylenediamine. Under the optimal conditions, the new coccine has two good linear responses in the concentration range of 0.2-100 and 100-200 μM, and the detection limits are as low as 24.8 and 9.4 nM, respectively. Our developed nanosensor has been successfully used for the determination of new coccine in food samples with good precision and high accuracy. This work highlights the economic, rapid, simple, selective and ultra-sensitive for new coccine detection, and opens up a new way for the monitoring of new coccine in actual food samples.

Plasmonic nanoparticles on metal-organic framework: A versatile SERS platform for adsorptive detection of new coccine and orange II dyes in food

Synthetic dyes have been widely applied to food processing, but abuse of colourants in food may pose risks to human health. To analyze new coccine (NC) and orange II (OII) in food, a versatile surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) platform was proposed. A metal-organic framework (MOF, UiO-66(NH₂)) with octahedral crystal structure was synthesized and gold nanoparticles were grown on the MOF surface to fabricate UiO-66(NH₂)@Au versatile SERS platform. The UiO-66(NH₂)@Au displayed much better SERS performance than gold nanoparticles with high R² of 0.9684 for NC and 0.9912 for OII and low LOD of 0.4015 mg/L for NC and 0.0546 mg/L for OII. The recoveries of NC and OII in Mirinda soft drink and paprika ranged from 82.92 to 109.63%. This study provided a sensitive and rapid method for determination of NC and OII through UiO-66(NH₂)@Au, and the proposed SERS platform revealed great potential for analyzing synthetic colourants in food samples.