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We report herein the photocatalytic activity of undoped carbon nanodots (CD) and phosphorus doped carbon nanodots (P-CD), which effectively degrades methylene blue (MB) dye under continuous irradiation of sunlight. The P-CD and CD were synthesized by the hydrothermal method using d-glucose anhydrous as the precursor. The morphological and structural characterization of P-CD was done using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). UV–Visible spectroscopic studies of CD and P-CD showed maximum optical absorption at 252 nm and 283 nm and interestingly P-CD exhibited an intense emission at 520 nm. The average radius of P-CD was found to be 2.19 nm. Use of P-CD and CD as photocatalysts in the degradation of methylene blue under direct sunlight irradiation yielded favourable results with a dye degradation rate of 0.02736 min−1 (standard error 0.00612) in presence of P-CD and a rate of 0.01645 min−1 (standard error 0.00342) in presence of CD. The self-degradation rate of MB was feeble compared to the rate of degradation with photocatalysts P-CD and CD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]