White-light emitting self-assembled graphene quantum dots from coal soot

Shiv Rag Mishra; Tuhin Mandal; Rabi Narayan Senapati; Vikram Singh

doi:10.1007/s42823-025-00860-3

White-light emitting self-assembled graphene quantum dots from coal soot

Carbon Letters
Abbr : Carbon Lett.
2025, 35(3), pp.1067~1079
DOI : 10.1007/s42823-025-00860-3
Publisher : Korean Carbon Society
Research Area : Natural Science > Natural Science General > Other Natural Sciences General
Received : August 20, 2024
Accepted : December 30, 2025
Published : June 5, 2025

Shiv Rag Mishra ¹, Tuhin Mandal ¹, Rabi Narayan Senapati ¹, Vikram Singh ¹

¹Environment Emission and CRM Section, CSIR-Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, Dhanbad, Jharkhand

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Graphene quantum dots have recently gained significant attention for their potential application in the development of optoelectronic materials. The present study focused on the ultrasonic method to synthesize white-light-emitting graphene quantum dots from coal soot in just 2 min at room temperature. The white-light emission was achieved in solution and polymeric film with good Commission Internationale del’Eclairage index (0.28, 0.33) and (0.25, 0.30), respectively. The graphene quantum dots cover a significant fraction of the visible region in the emission spectrum with two prominent bands at 475 and 635 nm at 380 nm photoexcitation, corresponding to monomer and J-aggregate emission. The strong reducing and basic nature of the ethylene diamine facilitated the preparation of self-assembled J-aggregate graphene quantum dots through hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interaction. The mechanism of origin J-aggregate emission in the prepared graphene quantum dots was studied using UV–visible absorption, steady-state, lifetime fluorescence spectroscopy, and zeta potential. The as-synthesized graphene quantum dots are successfully coated on the UV-LEDs' surface and emit white light on the applied voltage. The colours of red, green, blue, and yellow balls appear significantly in the lighting of prepared white LEDs.

KEYWORDS

Coal soot, Graphene quantum dots, Ethylene diamine, J-aggregate, Ultrasonication treatment, White-light emission

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Carbon Letters 2025 KCI Impact Factor : 0.73 KCI-WoS Impact Factor : 6.26

White-light emitting self-assembled graphene quantum dots from coal soot

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Citation status

This is the result of checking the information with the same ISSN, publication year, volume, and start page between the WoS and the KCI journals. (as of 2026-07-09)

Total Citation Counts(KCI+WOS) (10) This is the number of times that the duplicate count has been removed by comparing the citation list of WoS and KCI.

* References for papers published after 2025 are currently being built.

Carbon Letters 2025 KCI Impact Factor : 0.73 KCI-WoS Impact Factor : 6.26

White-light emitting self-assembled graphene quantum dots from coal soot

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WoS Citation Counts (10) This is the result of checking the information with the same ISSN, publication year, volume, and start page between the WoS and the KCI journals. (as of 2026-07-09)

Total Citation Counts(KCI+WOS) (10) This is the number of times that the duplicate count has been removed by comparing the citation list of WoS and KCI.

REFERENCES (92) * References for papers published after 2025 are currently being built.

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* References for papers published after 2025 are currently being built.