Multifunctional Carbon Dots-Based Fluorescence Detection for Sudan I, Sudan IV and Tetracycline Hydrochloride in Foods

Sudan dyes are strictly prohibited from being added to edible products as carcinogens and tetracycline hydrochloride (TC) remaining in animal-derived food may cause harm to the human body. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a high-sensitivity, simple and convenient method for the detection of Sudan dyes and TC in foods for safety purposes. In this work, multifunctional blue fluorescent carbon dots (B-CDs) were prepared by a one-step hydrothermal synthesis using glucose as the carbon source. The results show that the fluorescence intensity of B-CDs was significantly affected by the acidity of the solution and can be quenched by Sudan I, IV and TC through selective studies. Interestingly, the fluorescence quenching intensities of B-CDs have a good linear relationship with the concentration of Sudan I and IV at pH = 3–7. The wide range of pH is beneficial to broaden the application of B-CDs in a practical samples analysis. The method has been successfully applied to real food samples of tomato paste, palm oil and honey, and the detection limits are 26.3 nM, 54.2 nM and 31.1 nM for Sudan I, Sudan IV and TC, respectively. This method integrates Sudan dyes and TC into the same multifunctional B-CDs, which shows that the sensor has a great potential in food safety detection.