Cyclodextrin Functionalized Carbon Dots Using IFE and FRET Dual Mechanism for Sequential Detection of Morin and Al3+

Carbon dots (CDs) are emerging photoluminescent materials with excellent optical properties. However, the lack of active sites in primitive CDs has limited their development applications. Herein, functionalized carbon dots (Z-CDs) are successfully prepared by surface modification of CDs with mono (6-amino-6-deoxy) cyclodextrin (β-CD). The introduction of β-CD increases the spatial potential resistance between CDs, which effectively reduces the self-quenching effect. Moreover, the conjugated domains of Z-CDs are expanded, which improves the optical properties with a quantum yield of 48.74%. Z-CDs are able to be used in the sequential detection of morin and Al³⁺, and the fluorescence mechanisms are confirmed to be internal filtration effect and fluorescence resonance energy transfer, respectively. The limits of detection are 0.817 and 0.231 × 10⁻⁶ m . This study not only provides an idea to solve the problem of self-quenching of CDs but also enriches the detection means of flavonoids and ions, which is expected to be applied to biosensing and environmental monitoring.