UiO-66-(OH)2 Derived Porous Fluorescence Tunable Materials by Doping with Carbon Dots

Carbon dots (CDs) has been widely applied in LED diodes, sensing and bioimaging. However, the fluorescence property of CDs is limited because of the solid-state aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ). Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), due to their high surface area, porosity and tunable pore size, are considered suitable hosts to inhibit the ACQ of CDs. Herein, the Zr-MOFs (UiO-66-(OH)(2)) is chosen as a host to encapsulate CDs. The dual-emitting CDs@MOFs system is constructed, which overcomes the problem of solid-state aggregation-caused quenching of carbon dots to gain the blue-emitting CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2). With the volume of CDs increased, the fluorescence of CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2) has changed simultaneously. When the volume reaches 3 ml, CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2) begin to cause fluorescence quenching. The correlated color temperatures (CCT) of CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2) are transformed from cold light to warm light. That can be further researched in electroluminescent diodes, ion-sensor, environmental monitoring, biological imaging and developments in other related biochemical fields.

Automated summary

Carbon dots (CDs) are widely used in LED diodes, sensing, and bioimaging. However, the fluorescence property of CDs is limited by solid-state aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ). Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), particularly Zr-MOFs (UiO-66-(OH)(2)), have been considered as suitable hosts to encapsulate CDs to overcome ACQ. By constructing a dual-emitting CDs@MOFs system, the research successfully achieved blue-emitting CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2) and found that the fluorescence of CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2) changes with the volume of CDs, eventually leading to fluorescence quenching. The correlated color temperatures of CDs@UiO-66-(OH)(2) were also observed to shift from cold light to warm light, which has potential applications in various fields such as electroluminescent diodes, ion-sensors, environmental monitoring, and biological imaging.