Carbon Dots and Fluorescein: The Ideal FRET Pair for the Fabrication of a Precise and Fully Reversible Ammonia Sensor

Monitoring of ammonia in the human breath is of paramount importance to monitor diseases link to liver and kidney mulfunctioning. The present paper describes a solid-state optical ammonia sensor based on Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between narrowly dispersed blue-emitting carbon nanodots (CNDs) as FRET donor and fluorescein as FRET acceptor. The fluorophores were physically entrapped in a close to superhydrophobic sol-gel matrix, in turn deposited on a PVDF-HFP electrospun fiber membrane. The sensor shows a linear calibration with a remarkably low limit of detection, i.e., 110 ppb, and adequate reproducibility up to six N2/NH3 cycles.