A postsynthetically modified MOF-808 as a fluorescent sensor for the detection of nitrofurazone antibiotic

Abstract

The excessive use of nitrofuran drugs in human healthcare as well as in animal husbandry are a major threat to both the environment and human health. As a result, there is an urgent requirement for extensive research to develop materials that can efficiently detect these residual pollutants. However, developing sensor materials with high sensitivity, selectivity, and recyclability is still a challenging task. Herein, we design and synthesize a stable photoluminescent metal–organic framework (MOFs) named MOF-808-AAA, where we have first time integrated a fluorescent organic molecule, 3-anthracen-9-yl-acrylic acid (AAA), via solvent-assisted ligand exchange (SALE) method. Comprehensive structural characterization employing various techniques including PXRD, FT-IR spectra, N2 adsorption, 1H NMR, UV–Vis, and fluorescence spectra, confirmed the successful integration of AAA into the MOF-808 framework. The synthesized MOF-808-AAA demonstrates remarkable luminescence properties and exhibits quick sensitivity towards nitrofurazone (NFZ) with quenching constant (Ksv) of 2.98 × 104 M−1 and low detection limit of 0.51 µM in acetonitrile medium, demonstrating the efficacy of MOF-808-AAA as a promising fluorescent chemical sensor for NFZ detection. In addition, we have proposed a plausible turn off sensing mechanism based on photophysical and electrochemical studies.