Highly selective fluorescent probe for benzidine determination using carbon dots fabricated from amoxicillin and sodium carbonate

Amoxicillin is one of the most important semi-synthetic penicillin broad-spectrum β-lactam antibiotics and has achieved many applications. There are few reports on its application for synthesizing carbon dots (CDs). Present work explored the possibility of amoxicillin converted into CDs with sodium carbonate used as the co-reactant employing facile hydrothermal method. The obtained CDs exhibited good selectivity and sensitivity to benzidine and could be explored as an effective fluorescence probe for monitoring benzidine. The fluorescence intensity of CDs was quenched based on the principle of static quenching due to the formation of a non-fluorescent complex between CD and benzidine. Within the range of 0.2–2 μM and 2–16 μM, CDs possessed good linear characteristics, high sensitivity, and a low detection limit of 0.08 μM. The results demonstrated that the fluorescence probe possessed the merits of simplicity, rapidity, low cost, short analytical time, high selectivity and sensitivity, and good stability. According to the verification results from the real water samples, the fluorescence probe had high reliability and feasibility, and could be employed for monitoring benzidine in waters.