Design of a Highly-Stable Pillar-Layer Zinc(II) Porous Framework for Rapid, Reversible, and Multi-Responsive Luminescent Sensor in Water

The hard–soft-acid–base (HSAB) and dual-ligand strategies have been used to construct a pillar-layer luminescent metal–organic framework (MOF) {[Zn2(TRZ)2(DBTDC-O2)]·DMAc}n (1), in which H2DBTDC-O2 = S,S-dioxodibenzothiophen-3,7-dicarboxylic acid and HTRZ = 1,2,4-triazole. Thanks to its high stability in water and quadrangle microporous channels, MOF 1 can be served as a platform of recyclable multi-responsive luminescent sensor for Fe3+, Al3+, SiF62–, Cr2O72–, nitrofurantoin (NFT), and nitrofurazone (NFZ) in water. This is the first MOF-based sensor for detecting SiF62– anion via luminescent enhancement effect. Significantly, 1 also represents a unique example to probe NFZ or NFT by using transition metal MOFs in water, which exhibits the most sensitive sensing ability for NFZ (Ksv = 5.2 × 104 M–1) and NFT (Ksv = 1.8 × 105 M–1) via luminescent quenching.