High quantum-yield carbon dots embedded metal-organic frameworks for selective and sensitive detection of dopamine

•The CDs@ZIF-8 composites have been fabricated via an in-situ embedding strategy.•The CDs@ZIF-8 demonstrates uniform size and excellent FL efficiency.•A fluorescent sensor for DA detection was favorably developed based on CDs@ZIF-8.•By virtue of synergy of ZIF-8 and CDs properties, sensor exhibits good performance. By embedding high quantum yield blue-emitting carbon dots (CDs) into zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), the luminescent metal-organic frameworks (LMOFs) - CDs@ZIF-8 composites were fabricated facilely and served as the fluorescent probe for selective and sensitive detection of dopamine (DA). In which the sustainable pores within ZIF-8 would not only provide a natural habitat for analyte but also can selectively capture and concentrate the DA molecules via the interaction between the analyte DA and the basic site of the frame. Meanwhile, the CDs can be served as the signal probes to transform chemical signals of the interaction between CDs and analytes into fluorescent signals. Thus, the as-synthesized CDs@ZIF-8 composites generate new sensing performance when compared with CDs. As a consequence, a wide concentration dynamic range of 0.1–200 μM with a low detection limit (LOD) 16.64 nM was favorably obtained for the CDs@ZIF-8 composites based detection method for DA. Besides, the practicality and viability of the fluorescent composites were also successfully verified via challenging the CDs@ZIF-8 based sensing method to detect DA in complicated serum and urine.