Fabrication of carbon dots for sequential on-off-on determination of Fe

Glutathione and 2-aminopyridine are used as carbon sources to prepare carbon dots (CDs) by a one-step hydrothermal reaction. The results show that the average particle diameter of CDs is 8.64 nm with uniform size distribution and the fluorescence quantum yield is 13.62%. We further demonstrate that novel CDs possess highly selective sensing of Fe