Environmentally Friendly Production of High-Quality and Multifunctional Carbon Quantum Dots from Coal
Researchers from the University of Wyoming and the University of Utah worked jointly to study the valorization of coal to carbon quantum dots (CQDs), a value-added product with a broad spectrum of applications. The CQDs were produced by an environmentally facile hydrothermal method, and the experimental factors influencing the properties of CQDs were investigated. We subsequently explored the applications of CQDs as co-sensitizers of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) and photocatalysts of water treatment. As an outlook, techno-economic and environmental analysis studied the feasibility of mass production of CQDs.