Perylene-Based Electrochemiluminescent Metal–Organic Frameworks for Detection of Zearalenone

Synthesis of efficient electrochemiluminescent (ECL) luminescent materials is one of the effective means to improve the sensitivity of sensors. In this study, an efficient ECL-emitting nanomaterial, lanthanide metal–organic framework (PTCA-La-MOF, PLM) decorated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) derivative perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic acid (PTCA), was synthesized for the sensitive detection of zearalenone (ZEN). The synthesized PLM nanomaterials effectively incorporated nanoscale features, allowing for efficient mass loading of PTCA while addressing the drawbacks of poor stability and easy aggregation in water. Moreover, the PLM exhibited a 2.4-fold increase in the ECL efficiency compared to PTCA aggregates due to the increase in ligand molecular spacing in PLM mitigated the aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect of PTCA. Furthermore, the substrate material polyethylenimine (PEI)-functionalized NG nanocomposite doped with NiZn MOF (NG-PEI-NiZn MOF) could be used as an excellent sensing platform due to the reason that NG-PEI-NiZn MOF exhibited large specific surface area and excellent metallic conductivity. We demonstrated that ECL immunosensors using PLM as the signal amplifier and NG-PEI-NiZn MOF as the sensing matrix showed a significantly enhanced ECL signal with excellent selectivity for ZEN. We envision that the signal amplification strategy not only provided an effective approach for the detection of ZEN in food and cereals but also provided a convenient way to overcome the ACQ effect of PAHs and provide the ECL efficiency.