Doping of Robust Mesoporous Metal-Organic Frameworks with Luminescent Lanthanide Ions for the Sensing of Drugs in Water

The global concern about uncontrolled release of drugs into the environment demands new materials for their detection and monitoring. In this regard, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are suitable candidates as platforms for the optical detection of drugs in water. We have introduced lanthanide ions (Sm3+, Gd3+, Tb3+) into two robust Zr-MOFs containing two types of clusters (Zr6 and Zr12), namely MOF-808 and MIP-206. Ln-sites within MOFs act as optical probes whose emission can be shifted in the presence of a particular contaminant (e.g., antibiotics). The aim of this proposal is to apply incisive Pair Distribution Function (PDF) analyses to elucidate the local structure of Ln-doped Zr-MOFs active in the capture of emerging drugs found in water sources.