Carbon Dot Soil Enhancement: Creating a New Era of Environmentally Conscious and Climate-Adaptive Agriculture
Authors: Okorhi Folawe Beatrice , Akpeji Bamidele Honesty 
Published: February 2025

Background: Synthesis of nanomaterials is highly encouraged due to its efficiency in eliminating the use of toxic agents during synthesis, it is environmentally friendly, easy to synthesize and cost effective. Main Body of Abstract: In recent years, there has been a signiﬁcant interest on carbon dot for various environmental applications, pollutants removal, carbon sequestration, and soil amelioration. Carbon dots (CDs)has numerous distinctive properties, which makes it a reliable, for varied contaminants elimination. The pH of the impacted soil was 5.75±1 (acidic), while the pH of the natural soil was 7.84±1 (alkaline).Soil properties were examined: texture, EC, moisture content, N. TOC, and phosphate. Characterization of the Biomass revealed that EDX, showed 69.10% for C, 7.20% for O, 2.22% for Na, 3.20 for Fe, 0.23 for Ca, and 0.33 for Si. This simply demonstrated that the plant extract did more than just act as a bio reductant; the X-ray detects the structural layers based on the d-spacing of the clay minerals. the uncovered eye of the UV-visible spectroscopy depicts the biomass synthesis, demonstrating its colour change from brown to greenish. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) spectroscopy helps to identify the primary bands functional groups, Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed separated and spherical packed nanoparticles in cocci-shaped form. The Carbon dot (CDs) was used as an amendment in stimulating the impacted soil. The total heterotrophic bacterial count(THBC), for the natural attenuation (Control) (0-84days) ranged between 31.33±1.53 and 119.00±9.64 and for the bio stimulation set up, concentration A in carbon dot at the initial stage shows 30.33±0.58 and 68.67±1.5, concentration B showed 31.67±1.53 and 69.67±4.51The effect of the treatment was analyzed by monitoring the TPH levels of the polluted samples within 86days at the interval of four weeks. From the different amendments used it was observed that within the first and the last week of exposure the values of TPH reduced drastically with carbon dot having the insignificant values of (1.36±2).The result secured from the GC-FID shows that (Natural /control sample comprising of a percentage of contaminated and uncontaminated soil without amendment) were in the range of 1071.62±0.54 and 84.27±0.01, for the 1.0% whereas the 10% recorded 12504.50±0.71 and 200.08±0.16 within the period of exposure, drastic reduction of TPH was observed within the early and the final stage of the laboratory experiment, for the impacted soil, Carbon dot, concentration A were within 1026.52±0.01 and53.88±0.00, while for the B they are 455.71±0.15 and 11.54±0.01, for C  182.38±.011 and  1.37±0.01, fact has been established that cfu/g counts are higher in polluted soil than unpolluted soil, and microbial counting of a contaminated site is the simplest method to monitoring microbial activities that can be used for bioremediation. Conclusion: Studies showed that CDs is currently promoted as a way to start a “doubly green revolution “it has been applied in environmental treatment, and in other vital areas with beautiful outcome.