One-pot green and simple synthesis of actinian nickel-doped carbon nanoflowers for ultrasensitive sensing of quercetin

In this contribution, a one-pot method possessing the advantages of easily prepared, rapid, efficient and environmentally friendly, has been developed for facile synthesis of highly fluorescent actinian nickel-doped carbon nanoflowers (Ni-CNFWs) by using nickel(II)acetylacetonate as a metal-carbon source for the first time. Various characterizations indicate that the metal nickel atoms have been successfully doped into carbon nanoflower frameworks with the weight percentage of 1.46 wt%. And the Ni-CNFW showed “shell-core” actinian structure with ~400 nm diameter and highly efficient fluorescent quenching ability in the presence of quercetin (Qut) due to the formed Meisenheimer complexes via conjugation effect of p, π-electrons between Ni-CNFW and Qut, which allowed the analysis of Qut in a very facile method. Under the optimal conditions, the decreased fluorescence of Ni-CNFWs shows a good linear relationship to the concentration of Qut ranging from 0.5 to 300.0 μM, and the limit of detection was 0.137 μM (3σ/k). Finally, the content of Qut in bovine serum was successfully detected with the novel on-off sensor, and the recoveries were 97.3-101.9%, which propose the constructed on-off sensor has a high selectivity and accuracy.