We report an ingenious strategy for fabrication of hollow orange fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (HFCNs) and demonstrate their applications for pH biosensing and fingerprint detection. HFCNs have been synthesized using 5-amino salicylic acid as carbon source via one-step hydrothermal treatment without further surface passivation or modification. The as-prepared HFCNs possess excellent hollow structure and bright orange fluorescence. The HFCNs display a remarkable emission enhancement in the orange fluorescence region when the pH is increased from 3.0 to 10.0. The pKa value of HFCNs is found to be 5.97 and a good linearity is shown in the pH range of 5.25-6.75, which makes HFCNs an effective intracellular pH imaging agent for acidic microenvironments. The confocal fluorescent microscopic images of HFCNs-stained latent fingerprint are achieved successfully, suggesting that they have great promise for practical criminal investigations as a simple, fast, and accurate tool.
Keywords: Carbon nanoparticles; Hollow; Orange fluorescence; PH sensing.
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