Kill three birds with one stone: Mitochondria-localized tea saponin derived carbon dots with AIE properties for stable detection of HSA and extremely acidic pH

In this work, tea saponin (TS) which is indispensable in Camellia oleifera industry was used to synthesize a class of hydrophobic carbon dots (TS-CDs) with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties. A new fluorescent sensing platform based on AIE and non-modified TS-CDs for the detection human serum albumin (HSA) pH developed, respectively. Interestingly, developed capable ratiometric detecting extremely acidic range 0.2–1.8 linearly (R2 = 0.9959) due protonation-deprotonation. Meanwhile, exhibited well stability toward HSA over wide linear (0–180 μM), long-term (48 h), (2–13). Furthermore, utilized localize mitochondria detect living cells, demonstrating its promising perspective biosensing applications. This work may pave novel avenue high value-added utilization extraction process extracting camellia oil food woody oil.