Discriminative detection of nitro aromatic explosives by a luminescent metal–organic framework

摘要: Nitro aromatics are the principal components of explosives used in acts terrorism and within improvised explosive devices, among others. Although high sensitivity towards nitro aromatic has been demonstrated, selective detection discrimination critical for practical applications. Fluorescence quenching metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is sufficiently sensitive to detect any explosives, but discriminative with different numbers –NO2 groups rare. Here we report a stable fluorescent MOF, [Zn2(NDC)2(bpy)]·Gx, 1 (where NDC = 2,6-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid, bpy 4,4′-bipyridine, G guest solvent molecules), whose fluorescence quenched by trace amounts introduced from solution or vapor phase. The steady-state time-resolved experiments show that process dynamic nature interactions (dipole–dipole, π-stacking) between MOF play crucial role groups.