Development of a novel C-dots conductometric sensor for NO sensing

Carbon dots (CDs, C-dots) obtained from waste produced during the production of olive oil in Calabria (Italy) have been investigated as a gas sensing material for the sensitive and selective detection of nitric oxide (NO) in air. The obtained CDs were characterized by XPS, FT-IR and ATR-FTIR. CDs were deposited to yield a sensitive layer on a conductometric platform and tested for gas sensing, showing promising characteristics for the selective monitoring of NO in air. The response of CDs composite to NO was 1.5 @ 1250 ppm and the response and recovery times amounted to 90 and 200 s, respectively. The sensing behavior of C-dots prepared using olive waste from a different geographic location (Puglia, Italy) was also reported and compared. It has been found that the sensing behavior of the two different materials based sensors investigated towards nitrogen oxides (NO and NO2) was completely different. On the one hand, the former exhibited selectivity towards NO. On the other, the latter showed prominent selectivity towards NO2. This behavior can be ascribed to the different functional groups exposed on the C-dots surface undergoing non-covalent interactions with a marked specificity of the hydroxyl and ethers moieties for NO and NO2, respectively.