Decoding the Mechanistic Strategies of Lanthanide‐based Luminescent Metal‐Organic Frameworks towards Antibiotic Detection

Abstract Antibiotics have successfully been developed and used widely in clinical therapeutics for many years to treat bacterial infections, resulting in their unregulated discharge into waterbodies, which adversely affects the flora and fauna. This triggers alarming health issues that ascertain the need to develop suitable sensors for the detection and removal of persitent antibiotic pollutants. Several reports have been made on lanthanide‐based luminescent metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) as one of the best‐known chemosensors that render efficient and selective detection of antibiotics owing to their intrinsic luminescent response. Herein, the recent advancements in lanthanide‐based MOFs for recognizing antibiotics are reviewed with a detailed discussion on the mechanistic routes of detection. Also, the possible transitions between the energy levels of lanthanides and the unique photophysical attributes of lanthanide‐organic hybrids are critically assessed. Further, the performance of the reported chemosensors based on their detection range, the limit of detection, stability, reproducibility, and practical feasibility are extensively explored. These unique aspects of this review provide a solid prospect for designing innovative and ingenious fluorescent probes.