Dendrimeric carbon dot-polyamide membranes

A method of making a dendrimeric carbon dot-polyamide membrane, comprising:

• forming dendrimeric carbon dots;
• preparing a porous membrane substrate to yield a prepared porous membrane substrate;
• dispersing the dendrimeric carbon dots in a solvent containing m-phenylenediamine to yield a mixture;
• immersing the prepared porous membrane substrate into the mixture;
• coating the mixture in a presence of trimesoyl chloride to yield a thin-film-composite membrane precursor;
• and
• heating the thin-film-composite membrane precursor to yield the dendrimeric carbon dot-polyamide membrane;
• wherein the dendrimeric carbon dots comprise polyamidoamine dendrimeric carbon dots, and forming the polyamidoamine dendrimeric carbon dots comprises:
• obtaining carbon dots;
• combining the carbon dots with an oxidant to yield oxidized carbon dots;
• combining the oxidized carbon dots with a reaction mixture comprising glycine and a catalyst under an atmosphere of nitrogen to yield esterified carbon dots;
• combining the esterified carbon dots with methyl methacrylate to yield half generation dendrimeric carbon dots;
• combining the half generation dendrimeric carbon dots with ethylenediamine to form full generation dendrimeric carbon dots;
• and
• combining the full generation dendrimeric carbon dots with methyl methacrylate and ethylenediamine a number of times to form polyamidoamine dendrimeric carbon dots.