A water-stable copper-based nanosized metal-organic framework for discriminative sensing of amines

The ability to design new metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) from different functional groups and different metals can lead to multifunctional materials with a discrimination capacity between chemically similar structures. Furthermore, MOFs produced at the nanoscale (nano-MOFs) appear to be innovative and highly promising materials for the development of improved bioanalytical applications (e.g. chemical sensing). Here, a water-stable green copper-based nano-MOF, [Cu(DHBDC)(H2O)2-x(DMF)x] (1), was prepared at the nanoscale size using polyacrylic acid at 5 degrees C in order to obtain nanocrystals. The resulting nano-MOF displays an intense fluorescence behaviour, where the presence of strong basic aliphatic amines with a low cone angle leads to "turn-off" of the emission at a rate depending on their nature. This new nanomaterial has proven to be useful as a discriminative sensor of amines either in a vapor phase via colorimetric detection or in water solution via luminescence analysis. A novel crystalline Cu-based MOF has been prepared with a nanometer size. This nanomaterial has proven to be useful as a discriminative sensor of amines either in vapor phase via colorimetric detection or in water solution via luminescence analysis.