Sensing and Discrimination of Explosives at Variable Concentrations with a Large-Pore MOF as Part of a Luminescent Array

Metal–organic
frameworks (MOFs) have shown great promise
for sensing of dangerous chemicals, including environmental toxins,
nerve agents, and explosives. However, challenges remain, such as
the sensing of larger analytes and the discrimination between similar
analytes at different concentrations. Herein, we present the synthesis
and development of a new, large-pore MOF for explosives sensing and
demonstrate its excellent sensitivity against a range of relevant
explosive compounds including trinitrotoluene and pentaerythritol
tetranitrate. We have developed an improved, thorough methodology
to eliminate common sources of error in our sensing protocol. We then
combine this new MOF with two others as part of a three-MOF array
for luminescent sensing and discrimination of five explosives. This
sensor works at part-per-million concentrations and, importantly,
can discriminate explosives with high accuracy without reference to
their concentration.

金属有机框架（Metal–organic frameworks, MOFs）在危险化学品传感领域已展现出巨大应用潜力，所覆盖的危险化学品包括环境毒素、神经毒剂与爆炸物。然而当前仍存在诸多挑战，例如对大体积分析物的传感检测，以及不同浓度下相似分析物的区分甄别。本文中，我们报道了一种用于爆炸物传感的新型大孔金属有机框架的合成与开发，并证实其对多种相关爆炸物化合物（包括三硝基甲苯（trinitrotoluene）与季戊四醇四硝酸酯（pentaerythritol tetranitrate））具备优异的传感灵敏度。我们开发了一套优化且完备的实验方法，以消除传感实验流程中常见的误差来源。随后，我们将该新型MOF与另外两种MOF相结合，构建了三MOF阵列传感平台，用于五种爆炸物的发光传感与区分甄别。该传感器可在百万分之一浓度下实现检测，且尤为关键的是，无需依赖分析物的浓度即可高精度区分不同爆炸物。