Post-modification preparation of dual-emission Eu3+@ZnII MOFs-based hybrid material and its application in highly sensitive ratiometric sensing for asthma wonder drug-procaterol enhanced by HCO3- and temperature

Currently, procaterol has been widely used as an asthma wonder drug; however, the overuse of procaterol easily leads to arrhythmia, and tachycardia decreased blood pressure. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of hybrid porous materials that have attracted great attention in the past 20 years. These metal-organic framework composites have highly efficient host-guest interactions and are excellent fluorescent sensing materials. In this work, an effective detection method to control the amount of procaterol was designed. A unique three-dimensional (3D) cluster-based metal-organic framework (MOF), namely [Zn2L(DEF)3]n (Zn-MOF, H4L=[1,1′:4′,1′'-terphenyl]- 3,3′',5,5′'-tetracarboxylic acid) can be prepared through the solvothermal method. Furthermore, through postsynthesis strategies, Eu3+ is loaded into cluster-based Zn-MOF to form dual-emission Eu3+@Zn-MOF, which can be employed as a ratiometric photoluminescent sensor for detecting the amount of wonder drug procaterol with a high K sensing constant value (6.12 ☓ 105 [M−1]) and a low limit of detection (LOD) value (46.10 nM). In addition, HCO3- can be effectively detected with a low LOD value (8.28 nM) in procaterol solution while other anions do not respond, which also reveals the pharmacological effects between HCO3- and procaterol. Furthermore, in the HCO3- solution, Eu3+@Zn-MOF exhibits a more sensitive sensing performance for the procaterol with high sensitivity and excellent recovery. On the other hand, Eu3+@Zn-MOF is a highly sensitive ratiometric temperature sensor in the range of 298−353 K. The detection sensitivity of Eu3+@Zn-MOF towards procaterol under the different physicochemical temperatures of the human body (303 K, 308 K, and 313 K) is also compared, This comparision indicates that temperature of 303 K has an enhanced sensing performance for procaterol in comparison with other detection temperatures. In conclusion, with the help of HCO3- and a suitable temperature (303 K), the detection sensitivity of Eu3+@Zn-MOF towards procaterol can be significantly improved and enhanced.