Green Synthesis of Self Assembled Nano-Spherical Dysprosium MOFs: Selective and Efficient Detection of Picric Acid in Aqueous and Gas Phase

This work demonstrates solvothermal synthesis of two new lanthanide based MOFs namely, [{Dy(2N3-TPA)2(H2O)(CH3OH)}]∞ (1) and [{Dy4(5N3-IPA)6(DMF)3(H2O)4}(DMF)(H2O)2]∞ (2) derived from two carboxylate ligands namely, 2-azidoterephthalate (2N3-TPA) and 5-azidoterephthalate (5N3-IPA) respectively, with immobilized azide functionalities oriented towards the pore surfaces. Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction (SXRD) analyses reveal that 1 exhibit infinite 1D network while 2 display a 2D sheet structure with helical metal carboxylate chains. Both the compounds are found to exhibit excellent thermal and aqueous phase stabilities. A simple and convenient route has been adopted to reduce the particle size of the as synthesized compounds to prepare nanoscale Metal-Organic Frameworks (NMOFs). Unprecedentedly, nano spherical architectures are observed for both the cases under SEM and TEM analyses. These NMOFs are successfully exploited as fluorescent probe for the detection of various nitroanalytes such as nitrotoluene (...