A Short Review on the Photocatalytic Applications of the Luminescent Carbon Dots

Nano carbon dots are a recently added class of carbon nanomaterials specifically with size less than 10 nm possessing unique electronic and optical properties. A wide array of green sources available for the synthesis of carbon dots along with its diverse applications makes them an interesting material of the decade. Conventional semiconductor nanoparticles endowed with the ability to create electron-hole pairs have been widely used for the photocatalytic applications irrespective of their limitation to restrict electron-hole recombination. Carbon dots (C-dots) which are biocompatible and possessing excellent electron acceptor/donor capability is a promising candidate to improve the photocatalytic efficiency of metal chalcogenide semiconductor nanoparticles. In this short review, a thorough survey of the utilisation of C-dots as a supporting entity for the various metal oxides and metal sulphides to be applied for advanced techniques such as photocatalytic wastewater treatment, hydrogen generation via water splitting and photocatalytic reduction of CO2 has been summarised.