Lanthanide-based metal-organic framework materials as bifunctional fluorescence sensors toward acetylacetone and aspartic acid

• Published in: CrystEngComm Vol. 24; no. 13; pp. 2464 - 2471
• Main Authors: Li, Yu-Guang, Hu, Jun-Jie, Zhang, Jia-Li, Liu, Sui-Jun, Peng, Yan, Wen, He-Rui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 28.03.2022
• Subjects: Acetylacetone; Aspartic acid; Fluorescence; Gadolinium; Metal-organic frameworks; Sensors; Structural analysis; Terbium
• ISSN: 1466-8033; 1466-8033
• DOI: 10.1039/d2ce00174h

A family of novel lanthanide-based metal-organic frameworks (Ln-MOFs) with bifunctional fluorescence sensing properties, namely, {[(CH 3 ) 2 NH 2 ] 5 [Ln 5 (TBAPy) 5 ]·solvent} n (Ln = Gd ( 1 ), Tb ( 2 ), and Dy ( 3 ); H 4 TBAPy = 1,3,5,7-tetra(4-carboxybenzene)pyrene), was synthesized and structurally characterized. Structural analysis reveals that Ln-MOFs 1-3 are isomorphic, and Gd-MOF 1 has a three-dimensional structure with a porosity of 20.40%. Due to the existence of the pyrene ring featuring a conjugated system, Ln-MOFs 1-3 exhibit strong fluorescence emission. Interestingly, Ln-MOFs 1-3 could be considered as good bifunctional fluorescence sensors toward acetylacetone and aspartic acid via a turn-on effect. The detection limits of Tb-MOF 2 toward acetylacetone and aspartic acid are 0.129 and 0.025 ppm, respectively. Furthermore, the probable sensing mechanisms for target analytes were also discussed in detail. Three lanthanide-based MOFs with a pyrene-based carboxylate ligand were solvothermally synthesized, which could be considered as fluorescence sensors toward acetylacetone and aspartic acid via a turn-on effect.