F. Parsa, et al.
Inorganica Chimica Acta 510 (2020) 119699
(
(
absence of the peak at 1666 cm−1) and powder X-ray diffraction
stability in the crystal structure).
directly. A very critical advantage of PL-methods is that both powder
and crystal of LMOFs can be applied in metal ion detection without the
need for film fabrication [35]. Therefore, considering the hybrid nature
of MOFs and, they can rise to optical emission and transduce special
kind of signals under photoinduced excitation conditions which is a
very favorable behavior for PL-methods. Various fluorescence-based
chemosensors were used for the detection of different analytes but
using LMOF due to the minimum material consumption is considered
cost-effective. As a result, MOF-based sensor materials have been ex-
tensively applied in photoluminescence-based methods as the most
widely explored technique for detection of metal ions to date. Due to
the fact that Cd2+ (d ) is the metal used to synthesize TMU-54, the
fluorescence is ligand-derived. Given the structural properties of the
structure’s ligands and their ability to form hydrogen bonding, electron
donation of azobenzene group, and probability of π-π stacking with the
guest molecule, quinone derivatives were selected as target structures
for detection. Model experiments were conducted to demonstrate our
assumption and evaluate the sensing ability of TMU-54 to benzoqui-
none, naphthoquinone, anthraquinone, phenol, and 1,8-dihydroxyan-
thraquinone. Stern–Volmer equation has generally been proposed to
investigate the response to quenching of various analytes (see the
supporting information). The results are presented in Table 1, which
show that TMU-54 is a turn-off fluorescence detector for quinone de-
rivatives. As it is shown in Table 1, the structure of TMU-54 acts as a
turn-off fluorescence sensor to quinone derivatives, but does not show
any particular reaction in the presence of 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone.
The order of quenching efficiency in the presence of TMU-54 is 1,8-
dihydroxyanthraquinone > Naphthoquinone > 1,4-
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of TMU-54
TMU-54, was synthesized to have a centrosymmetric triclinic space
group (P-1). Crystal data with data collection and refinement para-
meters are summarized in Table S1, also selected bond distances and
angles are given in Table S2. The hourglass-like [Cd
the TMU-54 ([Cd (adc) (DMF) ]) contains two different Cd(II) centers
in which Cd is connected by six oxygen atoms (Cd ) of six different
adc linkers creating an octahedral environment, while Cd has seven
coordinated geometry interacting with six oxygen atoms of three adc
ligands and one oxygen atom from a coordinated DMF molecule. The
3 6
(COO) ] SBUs of
10
3
6
2
1
1 6
O
2
distance between the two cadmium atoms in hourglass-like Cd
.412 Ȧ. The three ligands attached to each Cd atom are spaced apart
in the space between the three ligands attached to another Cd atom
3
SBU is
3
1
1
with opposite orientation (Fig. 1). This particular orientation and in-
terpenetration leads to the reduction of free space in the structure. The
supramolecular features of TMU-54 are controlled by weak directional
intermolecular interactions. The π-π stacking interactions through iso-
lated chains create a 3D supramolecular framework. To investigate the
porosity of these structures, the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) mea-
surements of N
2
gas were f demonstrate that TMU-54 has a surface area
2
of 35.7 m /g (Fig. 2).
Benzoquinone > Anthraquinone (Figs. S2 and S3 and Fig. 4).
3
.2. Thermal stability studies of TMU-54
Quinones have a low-lying unoccupied π* orbital, which can accept
an electron from the excited state chemophore, thus efficiently
quenching the fluorescence emission of this compound but in the case
of 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone sensing by TMU-54, the proximity of
the excitation wavelength of the guest to the emission wavelength of
the host justifies the observed effect. For compounds containing α-hy-
droxy group tautomerism involves a proton transfer along a conjuga-
tion chain from hydroxy group and adjacent carbonyl group [31]. In-
termolecular hydrogen bonding as well as the π-π stacking interaction
can also be effective in danthron sensing by TMU-54.
Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of the TMU-54 shows the good
thermal stability of the structure. The two-step gradual weight loss (in
temperature range of 325–500 °C) corresponds to the decomposition of
the framework (calc.: 67%, found: 65.5%) corresponding to the se-
paration of the ligand connected to the metal node. Therefore, the
structure is stable at temperatures up to 300 °C (Fig. 3 and Figs. S2–S5).
3
.3. Quinoline-sensing ability of TMU-54
The UV–Vis spectra of all the analytes have been studied (Fig. 5).
The overlap of the fluorescence emission spectrum of the sensor with
the absorption spectrum of the analytes is a more important factor.
When the proximity between a donor and an acceptor, with sufficient
spectral overlap, is of < 10 nm the energy transfer process can be
achieved. The large overlap of TMU-54 emission peak with the ab-
sorption spectrum of danthron and the lack of spectral overlap between
TMU-54 and other analytes confirm the energy transfer process me-
chanism in 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone sensing by TMU-54 (Fig. 5).
The XRD patterns of TMU-54 before and after the sensing process
are shown in Fig. 6. The intact patterns show that the structures remain
unchanged during the sensing process (see Fig. 6).
Owing to photophysical properties of MOFs in signal transduction
and advantages of photoluminescence (PL) methods, PL-based methods
have received more attention compared to other methods. PL methods
are highly sensitive with reachable single molecular detection limits,
easily manipulable, practical in real-life and in-field applications, with
rapid response time, and able to be addressed by powdered materials
As a result, we can clearly argue that fine tuning of MOF cavities
with ideal organic functional groups can provide situations resulting in
high sensing ability of MOFs despite their moderate surface areas.
Considering this point, we applied azobenzene decorated TMU-54 for
sensing of 1,8-dihydroxyantraquinone to take advantage of its strong
and improved characteristics. Therefore, TMU-54 shows high sensi-
tivity towards 1, 8-dihydroxyantraquinone (Ksv > 1040) compared
with other quinone derivatives.
4. Conclusion
In this work we synthesized a fluorescent MOF (TMU-54) by the
solvothermal method. The sensing ability of TMU-54 (containing the
same azobenzene functional group) toward quinone derivatives was
studied. The activated TMU-54 can selectively detect quinones and
2
Fig. 2. N adsorption–desorption isotherms of TMU-54 (B).
3