Room Temperature Synthesized Carbon Dots as Fluorescence/Smartphone Assisted Colorimetric Sensor for Mitoxantrone

ABSTRACT Chemotherapeutic drugs like Mitoxantrone (MITX) are a practical therapeutic choice despite its adverse effects. So, monitoring of MITX in the patient's body is essential for effective treatment with minimal toxicity. In this work, we adopted a cost‐effective, energy‐efficient synthetic method to prepare highly fluorescent N‐doped carbon dots (N‐CDs) with a fluorescence quantum yield of 58%. The synthesized photostable N‐CDs were demonstrated as a fluorescence/colorimetric sensor for MITX. With increasing concentration of MITX, the fluorescence emission of N‐CDs at 520 nm gradually decreased and the limit of detection was found to be 0.47 µM. Additionally, these N‐CDs showed a good linear response toward MITX in the colorimetric method. The observed color change was quantified through a UV–visible spectrophotometer and smartphone with LOD values of 1.92 and 1.88 µM respectively. The use of portable, easy‐to‐handle smartphones will facilitate the on‐site quantitative detection and naked eye visualization of MITX. The N‐CDs exhibited high selectivity toward MITX and negligible interference in both the fluorescence and colorimetry modes. To ensure the practical applicability of the multi‐mode N‐CDs probe, it was tested with real samples like human blood serum, artificial urine, and tap water that showed reasonable recovery of MITX, ranging from 95% to 105%.