A fluorescent anthracene-based metal-organic framework for highly selective detection of nitroanilines

Aiming to develop an effective fluorescence probe for detecting nitroanilines compounds, a new3D "pillar-layered" metal-organic framework [Cd(dpa)(pta)]center dot nDMF (1) was constructed through solvothermal reaction of Cd2+ with 9,10-di(pyridine-4-yl) anthracene (dpa) and terephthalic acid (pta). As expected, 1 displays selective fluorescence quenching response toward nitroanilines, including 2-nitroaniline, 4-nitroaniline and 2,4-dinitroaniline, attributable to the cooperation of absorption competition and energy transfer mechanism, which can effectively distinguish nitroanilines from other nitrobenzene and anilines compounds. Furthermore, the quenching efficiency exhibits different varying trends for these three nitroanilines along with the change of exciting wavelength, which can be used to effectively distinguish them from each other. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.