Hydrothermal synthesis of carbon nanodots from sucrose and sodium citrate: repeatability of structural and spectral properties

Obtaining samples with highly reproducible properties is an important prerequisite for nanoparticles in industrial and biomedical applications. In this work, we synthesized carbon nanodots (CNDs) from sucrose and sodium citrate by hydrothermal method (1 h, 190 °C) and showed high repeatability of structural and spectral properties of the obtained nanoparticles. In three groups of four samples each (12 consecutive syntheses), we did not see a statistically significant difference in the quantitative parameters of the CND surface composition and the position of the fluorescence bands (ANOVA p-value > 0.05). The CND size, fluorescence quantum yield, and some parameters of steady-state fluorescence also show good repeatability.