There is a growing interest to replace conventional organicdyes with stable semiconductor or carbon-based photoluminescentnanomaterials in fluorescence-based sensing applications .Photoluminescent carbon dots (CDs) are better compared to semi-conductor nanomaterials in terms of their high biocompatibilityand low toxicity and cost . To date, fluorescent CDs have beensuccessfully exploited in a wide range of applications such asbioimaging energy conversion and storage [7,8], and sensing[9,10].Detection and quantification of ammonia is crucial for envi-ronmental, industrial, and biomedical purposes [11,12]. Severalmethods, including amperometric fluorimetric andcolourimetric have been used for detecting ammonia insolution and in vapour phases.Early amperometry-based methods for the detection of ammo-nia employed metal oxides, more commonly tin oxide-basedsensors, in which the output resistance varied with ammoniaexposure [19]. Recently, more attention has been paid to thedevelopment of amperometric sensors using carbon-based nano-materials, such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, as well asconducting polymers such as polyaniline [20–22]. For example, an