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Waste to wealth translation of e-waste to plasmonic nanostructures for surface-enhanced Raman scattering

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Abstract

Here we report, for the first time, a simple one-step recycling of discharged batteries, a major constituent of electronic waste (e-waste), into value-added fluorescent nanomaterials-carbon quantum dots (CQDs). The e-waste derived CQDs (eW-CQDs) were systematically characterized for their optical properties, including absorption, photoluminescence, quantum yield, and emission lifetime. The morphology of these nanomaterials was determined by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, and X-ray diffraction, whereas Raman spectroscopy was used to confirm their carbonaceous architecture. To broaden the range of applications, the eW-CQDs were employed in the synthesis of plasmonic nanostructures (eW-Au@CQDs) via a one-step chemical reduction strategy. Both eW-CQDs and eW-Au@CQDs were further tested for their suitability to be used as surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) substrates for the detection of methylene blue (MB), a model dye and Raman reporter. Our results show that while eW-CQDs are not ideal for SERS applications, eW-Au@CQDs, when deposited on a gold-modified screen-printed carbon electrode (SPE), produce strong MB SERS signals. With further optimization, these eW-Au@CQDs-modified SPEs could find applications in SERS-based sensing. This study demonstrates a new, promising, and sustainable approach of converting e-waste such as discharged batteries into value-added products with potential for a wide range of applications.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Indo-US Science and Technology forum under Water Advanced Research and Innovation (WARI) Fellowship Program and US Environmental Protection Agency WINSSS. Authors also acknowledge, Dr. Praveen Kumar (Indian Association for Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, India) for his support in material characterization and technical discussion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), New Delhi, India

    Pooja Devi & Anupma Thakur

  2. Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Sector-30C, Chandigarh, India

    Pooja Devi

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Pooja Devi, Kenneth N. Hipp & Rebecca Y. Lai

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  1. Pooja Devi
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  2. Kenneth N. Hipp
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  3. Anupma Thakur
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  4. Rebecca Y. Lai
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Contributions

The idea was conceptualized by PD and RL, while experimental studies on the synthesis of eW-CQDs and Au@CQDs were carried by PD and AT. KH carried out the SERS studies. Results were analyzed and discussed by all authors. All authors have significantly contributed in manuscript drafting and finalization. There is no competing conflict of interest amongst authors.

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Correspondence to Pooja Devi or Rebecca Y. Lai.

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13204_2020_1273_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Supplementary file1 Associated content: Supporting Information [Time-resolved emission spectra (TRES) of eW-CQDs; Raman spectra of eW-CQDs and eW-Au@CQDs; Dose-response curves obtained by analyzing the MB signal at ~ 1400 cm-1 at SERS substrate] (DOCX 368 kb)

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Devi, P., Hipp, K.N., Thakur, A. et al. Waste to wealth translation of e-waste to plasmonic nanostructures for surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Appl Nanosci 10, 1615–1623 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01273-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01273-6

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