The determination of nitrite by a graphene quantum dot fluorescence quenching method without sample pretreatment

A method for quantitative analysis of nitrite was achieved based on fluorescence quenching of graphene quantum dots. To obtain reliable results, the effects of pH, temperature and reaction time on this fluorescence quenching system were studied. Under optimized conditions, decrease in fluorescence intensity of graphene quantum dots (F0/F) showed a good linear relationship with nitrite concentration between 0.007692–0.38406 mmol/L and 0.03623–0.13043 μmol/L; the limits of detection were 9.8 μmol/L and 5.4 nmol/L, respectively. Variable temperature experiments, UV absorption spectra and thermodynamic calculations were used to determine the quenching mechanism, and indicated that it was an exothermic, spontaneous dynamic quenching process. This method was used to analyse urine samples, and showed that it could be applied to analyse biological samples.