Luminescent Detection of Colchicine by a Unique Indium–Organic Framework in Water with High Sensitivity

Colchicine is highly toxic to creatures, and sensitively detecting colchicines is of profound significance in the pharmaceutical, clinical, food, and breeding industries. We herein designed and constructed a unique luminescent indium–organic framework {[(CH3)2NH2]­[In­(L)]·9DMF}n (V105) via an in situ ligand-mediated method, which possesses a 2-fold interpenetrated 3D anionic framework. Due to the large channels that exist in the framework with the size of 12 Å × 14 Å, V105 can rapidly remove harmful cationic dyes from water in a few minutes. Importantly, luminescent experiments demonstrate that V105 can selectively detect colchicine with high sensitivity in water, and the limit of detection can reach 1.0 × 10–7 M. To our knowledge, this is the first example of a metal–organic framework-based luminescent sensor for detecting colchicine.