Bright-yellow-emissive nitrogen-doped carbon nanodots as a fluorescent nanoprobe for the straightforward detection of glutathione in food samples

•A yellow-emissive N-CNDs-based nanoprobe was fabricated for straightforward detection of GSH.•The proposed fluorescence nanoprobe are highly sensitive and selective towards GSH sensing.•The proposed fluorescence method was successfully used for GSH determination in food samples. In this work, a novel yellow-emissive nanoprobe was for the first time developed for the fast detection of glutathione (GSH) based on nitrogen-doped carbon nanodots (N-CNDs) prepared via hydrothermal heating of o-Phenylenediamine. The N-CNDs and GSH could form non-fluorescent complex via static interaction, resulting in the fluorescence quenching of N-CNDs. Under optimal conditions, the N-CNDs served as a fluorescent nanoprobe for GSH sensing in a straightforward way with high selectivity and sensitivity. Two good linear responses were found for GSH detection in concentration ranges of 0.1–1.0 μM and 1.0–220.0 μM, respectively. The corresponding detection limits are as low as 0.059 μM and 5.54 μM, respectively. Meanwhile, the proposed sensing system was successfully applied for GSH determination in vegetable and fruit samples with high accuracy. This work highlights the detection of GSH in a simple, fast, cost-effective, selective and ultrasensitive way, which paves a new way for other food quality monitoring.