Metal−Organic Frameworks as Sensors

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for the development of chemical sensors for the detection of harmful pollutants in the environment as evident from enormous publications in this area. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been widely and rapidly growing as chemical sensors for such pollutants. The various special features of MOFs such as large surface area, structural flexibility, high porosity, high adsorption efficiency are the main reasons for the development of these frameworks as sensors. Luminescent properties of the MOFs have been explored for various applications such as gas storage and separation, drug delivery, sensing of various ions and biomolecules. The luminescent MOFs detect the analyte species via various mechanisms such as cation exchange, structure collapse, overlap mechanism and analyte-linker interactions. The present chapter highlights the recent advances in the area of metal-organic frameworks as cation, anion, pH and temperature sensors.