Selective Detection of Aromatic Nitrophenols by a Metal–Organic Framework-Based Fluorescent Sensor

Because of serious environmental pollutions, the detection of hazardous and explosive nitro-aromatic compounds using metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) has been a promising research field in the current scenario. Here, we report a new fluorescent MOF, [Zn2(TCPE)(tta)2]·2DMF·4H2O·2Me2NH2+ (HNU-34, H4TCPE = 1,1,2,2-tetra(4-carboxylphenyl)ethylene, 1H-tta = 1H-tetrazole), which possesses a three-dimensional configuration and one-dimensional channels along the c-axis. It can serve as a luminescence sensor for the detection of nitrophenol explosives through different quenching effects, especially for mononitrophenol and dinitrophenol. The detection limits of 2,6-dinitrophenol and trinitrophenol are 29.45 and 36.15 nM, respectively, which are among the high level of the reported MOF sensors, especially for dinitrophenol.