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Review
. 2022 Apr 25:10:881495.
doi: 10.3389/fchem.2022.881495. eCollection 2022.

Recent Progress on Carbon Quantum Dots Based Photocatalysis

Hwapyung Jung  1 , Vijay S Sapner  2 , Arindam Adhikari  3 , Bhaskar R Sathe  2 , Rajkumar Patel  4
Affiliations
Review

Recent Progress on Carbon Quantum Dots Based Photocatalysis

Hwapyung Jung et al. Front Chem. .

Abstract

As a novel carbon allotrope, carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have been investigated in various fields, including photocatalysis, bioimaging, optoelectronics, energy and photovoltaic devices, biosensing, and drug delivery owing to their unique optical and electronic properties. In particular, CQDs' excellent sunlight harvesting ability, tunable photoluminescence (PL), up-conversion photoluminescence (UCPL), and efficient photo-excited electron transfer have enabled their applications in photocatalysis. This work focuses on the recent progress on CQDs-related materials' synthesis, properties, and applications in photocatalysis.

Keywords: carbon quantum dots (CQDs); composite quantum dots; energy and environmental remediation; modified quantum dots; photocatalysis; photovoltaic devices.

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Conflict of interest statement

AA was employed by Aadarsh Innovations. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Schematic overview of applications of CQDs-related materials as sole photocatalysts, photosensitizers, electron mediators, and spectral converters.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Schematic representation of CQDs synthesis by “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
High resolution transmission electron microscopic (H-TEM) image of a single CQD showing graphitic spacing. (Reproduced from Das et al., 2019, Springer Nature).
SCHEME 1
SCHEME 1
Schematics of (A) unmodified, (B) modified, and (C) composite carbon quantum dots (CQDs).
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Different magnification (A) TEM image of r-Mg-N-CD and (B) its corresponding size distribution; (C) HRTEM image of r-Mg-N-CD and (D) zoomed image of (C). (Reproduced with permission from Bhati et al., 2018, Copyright © 2018, American Chemical Society).
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Field-emission transmission electron microscopic image of (A) BZO hollow nanospheres and (B) high-resolution transmission electron microscopic image of BZO hollow spheres. The inset to (C) is the fast Fourier transformed image of the highlighted portion in image (B), (C) shows the inverse fast Fourier transformed image of the masked fast Fourier transformed image shown in the inset to (C), (D) shows the selected area electron dispersion patterns of BZO. (Reproduced from Patra et al., 2018, American Chemical Society).
SCHEME 2
SCHEME 2
A schematic illustration of the fabrication of the gear-shaped WO3 (G-WO3) and N, Fe-CDs/G-WO3. (Reproduced from Ni et al., 2020, MDPI).
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
SEM and TEM of N,Fe-CDs; N,Fe-CDs/G-WO3-0.6 composite. (A,B) SEM of N,Fe-CDs/G-WO3-0.6; (C) TEM of N,Fe-CDs with the inset for the size distribution; (D) TEM of N,Fe-CDs/G-WO3-0.6; (E,F) HRTEM of N,Fe-CDs/G-WO3-0.6. (Reproduced from Ni et al., 2020, MDPI).
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
(A) TEM and (B) HR-TEM images of Pd@CD-CONH and (C) histogram. (Reproduced from Selim et al., 2020, American Chemical Society).
FIGURE 8
FIGURE 8
(A) TEM images of Pd@CD-CONH, (B) EDAX mapping of some areas of the catalyst, (C) C, (D) O, (E) N, and (F) Pd. (Reproduced from Selim et al., 2020, American Chemical Society).
FIGURE 9
FIGURE 9
(A) Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image, X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern (shown as the red overlay at the top portion of the panel) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrum (shown as the red overlay at the bottom portion of the panel) of Au/CQDs composites; (B) high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HTEM) image of Au/CQDs composites. (Reproduced with permission from Liu et al., 2014, Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society).
FIGURE 10
FIGURE 10
FE-SEM images of (A,B) hollow BMO microsphere and (C,D) CQDs/Au/BMO; (E) EDX spectrum of sample CQDs/Au/BMO showing the presence of Bi, Mo, O, Au and C elements. (Reproduced from Zhao et al., 2021, Royal Society of Chemistry).
FIGURE 11
FIGURE 11
HTEM image of CQDs/Au/BMO nanocomposite. (Reproduced from Zhao et al., 2021, Royal Society of Chemistry).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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