Application of Carbon Quantum Dots in the Food Industry

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have recently attracted extensive attention due to their excellent physical and chemical properties, including abundant surface functional groups, ultra-small size, tunable high-fluorescence, good biocompatibility, excellent antibacterial activity, and nontoxic/low-toxicity etc. These advantages provide opportunities for the application of CQDs in the food industry. The CQDs have been used to develop new technologies that can improve shelf life or freshness of food samples, design methods or tools for rapid food analysis, and fabricate functional and environmentally friendly food packaging. This chapter systematically reviews the applications and detecting principles of CQDs used as fluorescent probes in food safety and quality detection, and reviews the applications of CQDs used as value-added multifunctional fillers in protective and active intelligent packaging films. In addition, it also summarizes the applications and effects of CQDs used as nanoscale food additives and coating agents in food preservation field and discusses the security of CQDs.