Carbon dots-embedded fluorescent silica xerogel

Herein, we describe the dynamics of gel transition of silica sol (tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) in ethanol-H2O to xerogel viaoranogel route. Silica sol made in ethanolic solution turns into an organogel during sol-gel synthesis of TEOS, which eventually makes a phase transition to xerogel following a process of spontaneous dehydration of the gel network at room temperature. It was observed that the gelation time decreased with the increasing...