Modified semiconductor quantum dots for energy efficient sensing and catalysis

Abstract

The unprecedented growth of industry to fulfill the needs of growing population had come at the expense of environment. As a repercussion, vast variety of untreated organic effluents are frequently discharged into the water bodies severely intoxicating them, thereby affecting all life forms. Amongst the possible effluents, particularly, pharmaceutical waste, pesticides and nitroaromatic compounds in water bodies require immediate addressal owing to their toxic and non-biodegradable nature. Thus, it is inevitable to develop effective strategies which can aid in detection as well as annihilation of toxic pollutants from aqueous environment, even at trace level. In this context, fluorescence sensing and photodegradation based methods have been recognized as the most effective technologies for their detection and eradication owing to fast and easy operation, non-destructive sampling, mild reaction conditions and environmental friendliness. In this context, semiconductor quantum dots (SQDs) appears to be most rational choice for detection and annihilation of persistent organic pollutants owing to their remarkable properties like broad excitation spectra, narrow emission spectra, high molar extinction coefficient, photochemical stability and resistance to photobleaching. Anticipating their astonishing properties, present work promotes the surface modification of SQDs particularly, CdS QDs, ZnS QDs and MoS2 QDs with biocompatible capping agents for the synchronous fluorescence sensing and photocatalysis of organic effluents. The overall work is an effort to exploit best possible surface modification of SQDs so as to synthesize efficient, low cost, highly stable and biocompatible SQDs for the obliteration of noxious pollutants. newline