Luminescent metal-organic frameworks as potential sensory materials for various environmental toxic agents

Hazardous and toxic chemical species are omnipresent and predominantly discharged by anthropogenic activities and posing a serious threat to the environment, humane health and aquatic life. Thus, their detection remains a serious task from both environmental and biological standpoint, especially in the vapor, gas or liquid phase, are of extreme importance. In recent times, extremely porous luminescent metal-organic frameworks (LMOFs), with abundant functional groups, high surface area, excellent chemical stability and structural tunability, have emerged into an attractive area of sensory materials and device fabrication for the detection of various forms of hazardous pollutants. Herein, we present the recent progress on LMOFs and LMOFs based composite materials as sensing probes for the efficient detection of the toxicants in a variety of sensing domains, including ionic species, volatile organic compounds, explosives, biomolecules, environmental toxins, and many others. This comprehensive review summarizes the topical developments in the field of luminescent MOF and MOF-based thin film/crystals sensory materials. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.