Bottom-up methods allowing the preparation of carbon dots (CDs) with favorable attributes are highly desirable. Herein, we report the mild bottom-up synthesis of CDs towards temperature sensing. Five kinds of CDs with blue or green fluorescence were synthesized in water or tetrahydrofuran (THF) under moderate conditions (normal pressure, 50~95 °C), with use of carbonyl compounds as carbon sources, such as acetylacetone (AA), cyclohexanone (CH), 2-hydroxy-2-methylpropiophenone (HM), glutaric dialdehyde (GD), and salicylaldehyde (SA). Typically, with use of acetylacetone (AA) as carbon sources, CDs were synthesized at 95 °C in water in the presence of zinc chloride and 1, 2-dichloroethane. The synthesis, characterizations, and optical properties of AA-derived CDs were thoroughly investigated. The resultant CDs exhibit green photoluminescence (PL) at 520 nm with absolute PL quantum yield (QY) of 21%. Moreover, the PL intensity proportionally depends on temperature in the range 150–360 K, which makes AA-derived CDs potentially useful for temperature sensing.

允许制备具有有利属性的碳点 (CD) 的自下而上的方法是非常可取的。在这里，我们报告了 CDs 对温度传感的温和自下而上的合成。以乙酰丙酮（AA）、环己酮等羰基化合物为碳源，在水或四氢呋喃（THF）中，在中等条件（常压，50~95℃）下合成了五种具有蓝色或绿色荧光的CDs（ CH)、2-羟基-2-甲基苯丙酮 (HM)、戊二醛 (GD) 和水杨醛 (SA)。通常，使用乙酰丙酮 (AA) 作为碳源，在氯化锌和 1, 2-二氯乙烷存在下，在 95 °C 的水中合成 CD。对 AA 衍生的 CDs 的合成、表征和光学性质进行了彻底的研究。所得 CD 在 520 nm 处表现出绿色光致发光 (PL)，绝对 PL 量子产率 (QY) 为 21%。此外，PL 强度成比例地取决于 150-360 K 范围内的温度，这使得 AA 衍生的 CD 可能用于温度传感。