Advanced real sample monitoring and density functional theory insights into plastic waste-derived carbon dots for detection of toxic environmental contaminants

Over recent years, there has been a significant push towards repurposing plastic food wrappers as a means to enhance environmental sustainability. Plastic food packaging can be transformed into beneficial carbonaceous materials for environmental protection through advanced recycling processes. The current scenario made it possible to exploit the latent capabilities of these wrappers to forge carbon dots with an elementary hydrothermal course, augmenting their fluorescent properties unequivocally. To the best of our knowledge, no study has ventured into the realm of using plastic food wrappers for the fabrication of carbon dots. Additionally, the composition of carbon dots was modified by doping them with transition metal (Iron) and nitrogen. The fabricated carbon dots exhibited intense luminescent attributes thus offering a remarkable potential to detect harmful contaminants such as uranium (U), doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) and imidacloprid (IMDA) in water systems. In this study, computational investigations were carried out to complement the experimental findings by calculating the bandgap, binding energy and charge transfer phenomenon between the fluorescent sensor and the detected contaminants. High selectivity and sensitivity for detecting hazardous agents have prompted the sensor to exhibit profound limits of detection 2.3, 4.8, and 6.1 µM for (DOX), (IMDA) and (U) respectively. The novelty of the present work lies in the use of plastic food wrappers as a substrate to create a sensor endowed with the capacity for multiple detections using a single probe, thereby aiding in exterminating harmful pollutants for human health safety, and environmental harmony.