High fluorescence CN-dots with high purity were synthesized through a facile, hydrothermal approach with citric acid and ethylenediamine. The high fluorescence productivity method makes the synthetic process of CN-dots both economical as well as environment-friendly. The prepared CN-dots are predominantly multi-layer graphene oxide with high photoluminescence properties. The novel CN-dots modified F-NiO nanocomposite are characterized by different spectroscopy techniques. The resulting photocatalyst demonstrates synergistically enhanced ultraviolet light photocatalytic activity on degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and rodamine B. The photocatalyst maintains above 82% degradation efficiency with excellent stability and reusability after four successive cycles. The proposed novel photocatalyst was found to be effective in the photodegradation of organic pollutants, which were considered for the present investigation. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.