An excellent water-stable 3D Zn-MOF with 8-fold interpenetrated diamondoid topology showing "turn-on/turn-off" luminescent detection of Al and SNT in aqueous media

• Published in: RSC advances 2021-11, Vol.11 (52), p.32622-32629
• Main Authors: Gao, Xiuting, Wang, Xiaohe, Feng, Miaomiao, Yang, Ming, Zhang, Qingfu
• Format: Article
• ISSN: 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/d1ra06590d

The effective detection of Al 3+ and antibiotics pollutants is crucial for environmental protection and human health due to their high toxicity and nondegradability, but it is still currently challenging. In this work, a methyl-decorated acylamide-containing dicarboxylate ligand H 2 L was elaborately designed and successfully synthesized, which was further employed to react with Zn( ii ) ions and dpe ligands to construct a new luminescent Zn-MOF, namely {[Zn(L)(dpe)]·DMF·3H 2 O} n ( 1 ). X-ray crystallography reveals that MOF 1 is a 3D 8-fold [4 + 4] interpenetrated diamondoid framework with isolated DMF and water molecules in the pores, in which the uncoordinated acylamide groups are found and facilitate the Zn-MOF to recognize analyte molecules. The activated solvent-free MOF sample (denoted as 1a ) exhibits excellent water stability and good luminescent performance. The luminescence sensing experiments show that 1a could behave as a bi-responsive chemical sensor for "turn-on" and "turn-off" luminescent detection of Al 3+ and SNT in aqueous media, respectively. The sensing mechanisms have also been discussed. Furthermore, MOF 1a was successfully applied to the effective determination of Al 3+ and SNT in real water samples. This represents, to our knowledge, the first example of a MOF material for "turn-on" and "turn-off" luminescent detection of Al 3+ and SNT in water, which will promote the practical application of water-stable luminescent MOF sensors in monitoring metal ions and antibiotics pollutants in the environmental water matrices. An excellent water-stable 3D Zn-MOF with 8-fold interpenetrated diamondoid topology acts as a bi-responsive chemical sensor for "turn-on" and "turn-off" luminescent detection of Al 3+ and SNT in aqueous media, respectively.