Sn4+ complexation with sulfonated-carbon dots in pursuit of enhanced fluorescence and singlet oxygen quantum yield

Qinghua Luo; Haizhen Ding; Xiaolong Hu; Jiahui Xu; Anwar Sadat; Mingsheng Xu; Fernando Lucas Primo; Antonio Claudio Tedesco; Haiyuan Zhang; Hong Bi

doi:10.1039/D0DT01187H

Sn⁴⁺ complexation with sulfonated-carbon dots in pursuit of enhanced fluorescence and singlet oxygen quantum yield†

Qinghua Luo,^a Haizhen Ding,^a Xiaolong Hu,^a Jiahui Xu,^a Anwar Sadat,^a Mingsheng Xu,^a Fernando Lucas Primo,

^b Antonio Claudio Tedesco,

^ac Haiyuan Zhang

^d and Hong Bi

*^a

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui Key Laboratory of Modern Biomanufacturing, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
E-mail: bihong@ahu.edu.cn

^b Department of Bioprocess and Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences of FCF/UNESP, Araraquara, São Paulo, Brazil

^c Department of Chemistry, Center of Nanotechnology and Tissue Engineering-Photobiology and Photomedicine Research Group, Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo 14040-901, Brazil

^d Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625Renmin Street, Changchun, Jilin 130022, China

Abstract

Here we report a novel strategy to crosslink the surface of sulfonated-carbon dots (S-CDs) by complexing SnCl₄ with sulfonate groups (–SO₃⁻) on the CDs in aqueous solution. The S-CDs show an average photoluminescence (PL) quantum yield of 21% and a mean diameter of 3.8 nm. After being complexed with Sn⁴⁺, the as-obtained Sn@S-CDs present a reduced size of 1.8 nm and a higher PL quantum yield of 32%. More interestingly, the Sn@S-CDs show an enhanced singlet oxygen (¹O₂) quantum yield as high as 37% compared to that of the S-CDs (27%). In the HepG2 cell line as a model, the Sn@S-CDs exhibit a remarkable cell imaging effect and in vitro PDT efficiency. Therefore, our study proposes a simple but effective cross-linking strategy to synthesize CDs incorporated with metal ions, for the purpose of achieving an enhanced fluorescence intensity and a higher ¹O₂ quantum yield.

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Sn⁴⁺ complexation with sulfonated-carbon dots in pursuit of enhanced fluorescence and singlet oxygen quantum yield†

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Sn⁴⁺ complexation with sulfonated-carbon dots in pursuit of enhanced fluorescence and singlet oxygen quantum yield

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