Hybrid Nanocomposites Formed by Lanthanide Nanoparticles in Zr-MOF for Local Temperature Measurements during Catalytic Reactions

Abstract

Zr-metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are waterstable materials with high surface properties and chemical stabilities and are often employed for catalysis. They can also become hosts for various upconverting nanoparticles via selfassembly, which opens up possibilities to use such nanocomposite materials for combined catalysis-thermometry applications. In our work, we show that the NaGdF4:Er, Yb@UiO-66-NH2, NaGdF4:Tm,Yb@UiO-66-NH2, and NaYF4:Er,Yb@NaYF4@UiO-66-NH2 nanocomposite materials display excellent temperaturedependent luminescence properties. Additionally, these nanocomposite materials can perform as a stable and reusable catalyst for the esterification of lauric acid (biomass-derived free fatty acid) with methanol to obtain methyl laurate. The NaGdF4/NaYF4 nanoparticles incorporated in the MOF do not significantly decrease their catalytic performance. At the same time, photoluminescence measurements can be performed in a working catalytic environment and the temperature can be read out from the ratio of the H-2(11/2) and S-4(3/2) transition peaks of Er3+ or F-3(3) and H-3(4) transition peaks of Tm3+ from the nanocomposites. The correlation between temperature, luminescent intensities, and catalytic reactivity was studied and showed that all the three factors depend on each other, but do not interfere. To the best of our knowledge, the combination of catalysis and luminescence thermometry in a MOF hybrid material has not been reported to date. However, it opens a wide range of possibilities, keeping in mind the large and versatile number of MOFs as well as different thermometry systems that can be incorporated into inorganic nanoparticles.