A novel Zn metal organic framework for the detection of o-nitrophenol, m-nitrophenol, p–nitrophenol

The large number of nitro compounds are discharged resulting in water pollution. The detection of nitro compounds are performed using fluorescence detection. In this paper, a novel sensor [Zn2(H4L)·DMF·H2O]n [H4L = 2,1′,5,5′-diphenyl ether tetracarboxylic acid; DMF = N,N-dimethylformamide] was synthesized, which proved itself capable of detecting nitro compounds through a series of characterization. X-ray single crystal diffractometer exhibits that Zn-MOF belongs to monoclinic system with space group P21/n. The limits of detection (LODs) for o-nitrophenol, m-nitrophenol, p-nitrophenol were 0.072 μM, 0.35 μM, 0.28 μM, respectively. The synthesized fluorescent sensor Zn-MOF is capable of recyclability and high sensitivity. It is also significant for the future development of metal organic framework materials (MOFs) as fluorescent sensors.