Table 1.
Examples of carbon dots with key applications
| Sources | Synthetic approaches | Size (nm) | Applications | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple juice | Hydrothermal | 4.5 | Imaging of mycobacterium and fungal cells | (Mehta et al. 2015) |
| Bee pollens | Hydrothermal | 1–2 | Cellular imaging and catalysis | (Zhang et al. 2015b) |
| Beer | Gel filtration chromatography | 2.5 | Breast cancer cell imaging and drug delivery | (Wang et al. 2015c) |
| Bloomed algae | Microwave | 8 | In vitro imaging | (Ramanan et al. 2016) |
| Carrot | Hydrothermal | 2.3 | Drug delivery | (D’souza et al. 2018) |
| Chionanthus retusus | Hydrothermal | 5 | Metal ion sensing and imaging of fungal cells | (Atchudan et al. 2017) |
| Coriander leaves | Hydrothermal | 2.4 | Sensoring of Fe3+ and cellular imaging | (Sachdev and Gopinath 2015) |
| Date kernel | Hydrothermal | 2.5 | Sensing of drugs and cellular imaging | (Amin et al. 2018) |
| Food waste-derived | Ultrasonic | 4.6 | In vitro bioimaging | (Park et al. 2014) |
| Garlic | Hydrothermal | 11 | Cellular imaging and free radical scavenging | (Zhao et al. 2015) |
| Glycerin and polyethylene glycol | Microwave | 3–4 | Nitrite sensing | (Lin et al. 2011) |
| Grape seed | Microwave | 1–8 | Nucleus imaging and pH sensing | (Kumawat et al. 2017a) |
| Honey | Solvothermal | 2 | Sensing Fe+3 and imaging of Hep-2 and Hela cells | (Yang et al. 2014) |
| Kidney beans | Hydrothermal | 20–30 | Cellular imaging | (Tripathi et al. 2017) |
| Latex | Microwave | 2–8 | Metal sensing and cellular imaging | (Balajia et al. 2018) |
| Lemon juice | Hydrothermal | 50 | Optoelectronics and bioimaging | (Hoan et al. 2019) |
| Lignin biomass | Ultrasonic and hydrothermal | 2–6 | Cellular imaging | (Ding et al. 2018) |
| Lotus root | Microwave | 9.41 | Heavy metal ion detection and cellular imaging | (Gu et al. 2016) |
| Mango leaves | Microwave | 2–8 | Cellular imaging and Temperature sensors | (Kumawat et al. 2017b) |
| Mangosteen pulp | Hydrothermal | 5 | Sensoring of Fe3+ and cellular imaging | (Yang et al. 2017a) |
| Onion waste | Hydrothermal | 15 | Sensoring of Fe3+ and cellular imaging | (Bandi et al. 2016) |
| Papaya juice | Hydrothermal | 3 | Cellular imaging | (Kasibabu et al. 2015) |
| Prunus mume | Hydrothermal | 9 | Cellular imaging | (Atchudan et al. 2016b) |
| Prunus persica | Hydrothermal | 8 | Cellular imaging and oxygen reduction reaction | (Atchudan et al. 2016a) |
| Pseudo-stem of banana | Hydrothermal | 1–3 | Sensing Fe+3, Imaging of Hela and MCF-7 cells | (Vandarkuzhali et al. 2017) |
| Saccharum officinarum | Hydrothermal | 3 | Cellular imaging of bacteria and yeast | (Mehta et al. 2014) |
| Strawberry | Hydrothermal | 5.2 | Fluorescent probes for mercury ions detection | (Huang et al. 2013) |
| Sugarcane molasses | Hydrothermal | 1.9 | Sensoring of Fe3+ and cellular imaging | (Huang et al. 2017) |
| Sweet potato | Hydrothermal | 3.39 | Fe+3 sensing and cellular imaging | (Shen et al. 2017) |
| Tissue paper | Microwave | 4.2 | Determination of Glutathione | (Sivasankaran et al. 2017) |
| Trapa bispinosa peel | Hydrothermal | 5–10 | Cellular imaging | (Mewada et al. 2013) |
| Walnut shell | Hydrothermal | 3.4 | Cellular imaging | (Cheng et al. 2017) |
| Water Chestnut and onion | Hydrothermal | 3.5 | Sensing of Cu (II) and Imaging of Coenzyme A | (Hu et al. 2017) |
| Winter melon | Hydrothermal | 4.5–5.2 | Cellular imaging | (Feng et al. 2015a) |