Facile preparation of fluorescent tartaric acid-modified polymer dots for Fe3+ detection

Herein, fluorescent polymer dots (T-PDs) with excellent properties were synthesized through a facile magnetic stirring method using carboxymethyl cellulose derivative (CMC-NH 2 ) and tartaric acid (TA). The synthesized T-PDs exhibit a nanoscale structure, excellent stability and good fluorescence behavior with a fluorescence quantum yield of 12.5 %. Moreover, the T-PDs can be selected for the design of sensors for detecting Fe 3+ via the internal filtration effect (IFE) through a fluorescence quenching process. A good linear equation can be fitted between (F 0 -F/F 0 ) and the amount of Fe 3+ from 0 to 600 μM (R 2  = 0.998) and the detection limit (LOD) for Fe 3+ was determined to be 0.74 μM (3σ/slope). Additionally, the as-prepared sensing platform can be utilized for detecting Fe 3+ in real samples, which indicates its great potential for application in sensing. Interestingly, the fluorescence of the quenched system can be partially recovered by the addition L-cysteine. Thus, a fluorescent “ON-OFF-ON” switch can be designed, and a resettable and multireadout logic gate operation can be realized.