A novel sensing system has been designed for the detection of m-phenylenediamine based on carbon quantum dots (CQDs)-improved chemiluminescence (CL) in a luminol–potassium permanganate (KMnO4) system. The CQDs were synthesized by pyrolyzing a mixture of citric acid (CA) and glycine (Gly). Under the action of CQDs and KMnO4, the luminol can be oxidized by synergy, which significantly increases the chemiluminescence intensity. In this work, it has been demonstrated that this facile methodology can offer a rapid, sensitive and reliable detection of m-phenylenediamine with a detection limit as low as 1.02 × 10−3 g L−1 and a dynamic range from 2.0 × 10−3 to 3.0 × 10−1 g L−1, which shows a promising application prospect.
