White‐Light‐Emitting Ln‐MOF as Luminescent Probe for Selective Detection of Nitroaromatic Compounds

Abstract

Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs) as an efficient and convenient sensing material for environmental pollutants have attracted widespread attention in recent years. Here in, we synthesized a series of lanthanide co‐doping MOFs, EuxTb1‐x‐MOFs (x=0, 0.005, 0.00667, 0.01, 0.02 and 1) under solvothermal conditions. The luminescence colors can be adjusted by changing metal molar mass ratios and altering excitation wavelength. Fortunately, a near white‐light‐emitting material Eu0.01Tb0.99‐MOF was obtained under the excitation at 350 nm, whose CIE coordinates of (0.3444, 0.3409) are very close to standard white light coordinates (0.3333, 0.3333). We further studied the fluorescence sensing performances of Eu‐MOF, Tb‐MOF and Eu0.01Tb0.99‐MOF towards NACs. The results indicate that all MOFs can selectively detect 4‐nitroaniline, 4‐nitrophenol and 2‐nitrophenol with good sensitivity and recyclability.