Construction of a 1D Cu(I)-based coordination polymer as a luminescent sensor for antibiotics and a photocatalyst for dye degradation

Abstract

Antibiotics are a typical contaminants existing in water that now are polluting the aquatic environment thereby affecting the aquatic life and human health. To address this issue, we have synthesized luminescent Cu(I)-based coordination polymer with composition{[CuI(bb)]·Cl}n(1) (bb = 4,4’-bis(imidazoly)biphenyl) and characterized. In crystalline state, 1 forms a non-covalently bonded one-dimensional (1D) chain, which is stacked into a three-dimensional (3D) supramolecular architecture. The polymer, when used as luminescent sensor against antibiotics, attained a limit of detection (LOD) down to 1.21 ppm and a Ksv of 1.67 × 103 M −1for antibiotic nitrofurantoin (NFT) which shows its sensitivity towards NFT. The CP manifested a high efficiency for catalytic photodegradation of NFT 91.41% decomposition within 100 min under 100 W mercury lamp. The plausible sensing and photocatalytic mechanism have been addressed with the help of theoretical calculations.