Carbon dots (CDs) with plenty of favorable properties have been extensively investigated in diverse areas including bioimaging, biomedicine, sensor, energy storage, anti-counterfeiting, photocatalysis, and optoelectronic devices. Herein, a simple, rapid, and green sonochemical-assisted method for fabricating nitrogen-doped CDs has been developed. In this approach, the nitrogen-doped CDs can be obtained through irradiation by intensive ultrasonic waves from ultrasonic probes in 30 min. The achieved CDs exhibit excellent water dispersibility, which can be ascribed to their high functionalization. Importantly, the CDs also demonstrate remarkable fluorescent properties, high photostability, and low cytotoxicity, which can be utilized for multicolor cellular imaging and anti-counterfeiting applications. As far as we know, the sonochemical-assisted method for rapidly synthesizing nitrogen-doped CDs from gelatin has never been reported before. Significantly, the sonochemical-assisted approach to rapidly fabricate CDs is versatile for the facile construction of fluorescent CDs, and the obtained CDs can be potentially used in various areas including bioimaging and anti-counterfeiting.

Biodegradable mulch films are supposed to be a prospective substitute for poly(ethylene)-based mulch films in the field of sustainable agriculture. Among them, weeding mulch films play significant roles. However, the large-scale production of weeding mulch films through the traditional high-temperature film blowing process would often cause serious pollution due to the diffusion of herbicides in the surroundings. Herein, a green and facile coating approach is developed to produce biodegradable weeding mulch films. In our strategy, a herbicide was added into a poly(vinyl alcohol) aqueous solution with dopamine in it. After the subsequent low-temperature coating procedure on a biodegradable poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate)/poly(lactic acid) film, effective weeding mulch films were obtained. The morphology, structure, and mechanical property test results revealed the robustness and stability of the coating, and the pot experiments clearly demonstrated the effective weed suppression ability of the obtained weeding films. Evidently, this strategy to produce biodegradable weeding mulch films is green and facile, exhibiting great prospects in the large-scale production of weeding mulch films and other functional biodegradable mulch films.

Fabrication of aggregation induced emission dye based cross-linked fluorescent polymer nanoparticles via free radical polymerization and ring-opening reaction for bioimaging.

Aggregation induced emission dye based cross-linked fluorescent glycopolymer nanoparticles with red emission: their synthesis, characterization and application for cell imaging.