Heterometallic ZnHoMOF as a Dual-Responsive Luminescence Sensor for Efficient Detection of Hippuric Acid Biomarker and Nitrofuran Antibiotics

Abstract

Developing efficient and sensitive MOF-based luminescence sensors for bioactive molecule detection is of great significance and remains a challenge. Benefiting from favorable chemical and thermal stability, as well as excellent luminescence performance, a porous Zn(II)Ho(III) heterometallic–organic framework (ZnHoMOF) was selected here as a bifunctional luminescence sensor for the early diagnosis of a toluene exposure biomarker of hippuric acid (HA) through “turn-on” luminescence enhancing response and the daily monitoring of NFT/NFZ antibiotics through “turn-off” quenching effects in aqueous media with high sensitivity, acceptable selectivity, good anti-interference, exceptional recyclability performance, and low detection limits (LODs) of 0.7 ppm for HA, 0.04 ppm for NFT, and 0.05 ppm for NFZ. Moreover, the developed sensor was employed to quantify HA in diluted urine samples and NFT/NFZ in natural river water with satisfactory results. In addition, the sensing mechanisms of ZnHoMOF as a dual-response chemosensor in efficient detection of HA and NFT/NFZ antibiotics were conducted from the view of photo-induced electron transfer (PET), as well as inner filter effects (IFEs), with the help of time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) and spectral overlap experiments.