Titanium-based metal–organic frameworks as potential chloroquine drug carriers

Presented here are porous Ti-MOFs as carriers of chloroquine with high loading capacity and controllable release. • Ti-MOFs with large surface areas as carriers for chloroquine (CQ). • MIL-125 and MIL-125-NH 2 exhibited high capability for CQ. • Both Ti-MOFs showed sustainable drug release of CQ. In this work, we report the syntheses and characterizations of two titanium-based metal–organic frameworks (Ti-MOFs), MIL-125 and MIL-125-NH 2 as potential drug carriers for chloroquine (CQ). Both materials exhibited high loading capability for CQ owing to their large surface area. The sustainable CQ release could reach ca. 70% after 13 days in phosphate buffer solution. The experimental results suggested that Ti-MOFs could be a valuable CQ carriers to realize the slow release.