Functional modification engineering of metal–organic frameworks for the contaminants detection in food

Food safety is a significant focus social concern around the world. Detecting food contaminants is crucial for controlling and reducing the risks they pose to human health and food safety. Thus, the accurate and sensitive technology for detecting harmful substances is of paramount importance. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are easily tunable and versatile, and selective adsorption of specific hazardous substances by modulating their structure and chemical composition. This review describes the functional modification engineering MOFs for hazardous substances detection in food. Various synthetic strategies for functional modification MOFs with different morphologies are described, including electrochemical synthesis, hydrothermal/solvothermal and microwave heating methods. The progress of functional modification MOFs for food harmful substances detection in the areas of pesticides, pharmaceuticals, heavy metal ions and fungus is overviewed. Challenges and future perspectives of multifunctional MOFs in food safety monitoring are also discussed. Functional modification MOFs showed excellent performance in the detection of contaminants with the advantages of efficient enrichment of target harmful substances and improvement of the sensitivity and accuracy of detection. Therefore, functional modification MOFs is expected to be an efficient, reliable and economical food safety detection tool for food safety applications.