The invention discloses a method for high efficiency preparation of carbon quantum dots by using biomass soot, wherein the method comprises the following specific steps: 1, adding concentrated nitric acid and concentrated sulfuric acid or a mixture of the two components into soot obtained by burning biomass, and carrying out ultrasonic treatment for 1 h-5 h, to obtain a dispersion liquid of the soot; 2, carrying out heating treatment of the dispersion liquid of the soot for 10-36 h at the temperature of 80 to 120 DEG C, naturally cooling to room temperature, then placing the cooled product into ice water, adding ultra pure water, stirring, and adjusting the mixed solution to be neutral with K2CO3, to obtain a crude product; and 3, centrifuging the crude product to filter out a precipitate, carrying out grading dialysis of the filtrate by using dialysis bags with different cut-off molecular weights, concentrating dialysates of all parts, and thus obtaining carbon quantum dot solutions with different size ranges. The selected raw materials are low in price and stable in sources, the preparation process is simple, and obtained carbon quantum dots can emit yellow fluorescence, have high quantum yield, and are suitable for light electric conversion, biological imaging, ion sensing and other fields.