Valorization of agro-industrial fruit peel waste to fluorescent nanocarbon sensor: Ultrasensitive detection of potentially hazardous tropane alkaloid

Highlights

• Transformation of agro-industrial waste to value-added material via green chemistry.

• Orange peel is valorized into fluorescent nanodiamond-like carbon (fNDC) sensor.

• fNDC detects potentially hazardous drug atropine sulfate (AS).

• fNDC recognizes AS in biological fluids and pharmaceuticals.

• fNDC assures applications in clinical and forensic toxicology.

Abstract

Millions of tonnes of agro-industrial waste are generated each year globally, with the vast majority of it going untreated, underutilized, and disposed of by burning or landfilling, causing severe environmental distress and economic downturn. A practical solution to this global issue is to use green chemistry to convert this waste into value-added products. Accordingly, in the present study, agro-industrial orange peel waste was valorized into fluorescent nanodiamond-like carbon sensor via a green route involving hydrothermal treatment of microwave carbonized orange peel waste. The developed sensor, used for the fluorescence detection of potentially hazardous drug atropine sulfate, exhibits unique dual linearity over concentration ranges of 300 nM to 1 M and from 1 M to 10 M, as well as ultra-low sensitivity of 34.42 nM and 356.46 nM, respectively. Additionally, the sensor demonstrates excellent reproducibility, high stability, and satisfactory recovery when used to identify and quantify atropine sulfate in biological samples and commercially available pharmaceuticals, indicating promising multidisciplinary applications.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Agro-industrial waste / Orange peel / Valorization / Nanodiamond-like carbon / Atropine sulphate / Fluorescence sensing

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Patent and Data availability

This work is a part of a patent application filed with the Indian Patent Office.(Details: A. V. Ramya and Manoj. B, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Indian Patent App. Number: 202041033633, published on 21st August 2020.). The data sets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study shall be available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Centre for Research, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, for facilitating this work. AVR is thankful to DST‐INSPIRE for the fellowship Grant (DST/INSPIRE/03/2015/004970). We also acknowledge CeNSE IISc, Bengaluru, IUCNN MG University, Kottayam and SAIF, CUSAT, Cochin for the characterization facilities.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1461-z and is accessible for authorized users.

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