The effect of lignin molecular weight on the formation and properties of carbon quantum dots

Abstract

It is generally believed that the formation of lignin-based carbon quantum dots (L-CQDs) includes lignin depolymerization and repolymerization. However, the detailed mechanism has not been well understood. In this study, the effect of lignin molecular weight on the properties of L-CQDs is studied to elucidate the formation mechanism of L-CQDs. Firstly, alkaline lignin is sequentially fractionated into five lignin samples with a molecular weight range of 7100–2000 using a continuous organic solvent precipitation method. Then, the five lignin fractions are used to prepare five L-CQDs numbered from 1 to 5, corresponding to the lignin fractions from high to low, respectively. L-CQDs-3 that was prepared from the lignin fraction with an intermediate molecular weight of 5042 g mol⁻¹ has a 1.86-fold increase in fluorescence intensity compared to the L-CQDs-0 prepared from pristine alkaline lignin. It is found that this lignin fraction with a molecular weight of 5042 g mol⁻¹ can depolymerize into a large number of vanillin and benzaldehyde (2,4-dihydroxy-6-methyl) units. These low molecular weight units can easily form highly conjugated carbon core structures, thus improving the fluorescence performance of L-CQDs-3. In addition, the present study confirms the excellent imaging ability of L-CQDs-3 in the L02, HepG2 and Escherichia coli cells. This study not only supplements the existing L-CQD formation mechanism, but also provides a simple method for the preparation of L-CQDs with high fluorescence performance.