Two ratiometric fluorescent sensors originating from functionalized R6G@UiO-66s for selective determination of formaldehyde and amine compounds

Abstract

Residual small amounts of harmful substances in food or medicine are potential threats to human health. In this work, amino-functionalized UiO-66 was firstly prepared, namely UiO-66-(a), then it was further treated with phosgene to obtain UiO-66-(b) with abundant carboxyl groups. By doping, the fluorescent Rhodamine 6G (R6G) was incorporated into the structures of the two functional UiO-66s to obtain R6G@UiO-66-(a) and R6G@UiO-66-(b), respectively. These two materials can both emit fluorescence based on UiO-66s and R6G, therefore, were employed as fluorescent probes to construct two ratiometric fluorescent sensors to detect formaldehyde and amine compounds, respectively. Based on the aldehyde-amine condensation reaction between –NH₂ and –CHO and the specific condensation reaction between –COOH and –NH₂, formaldehyde molecules and amine compounds can react with these two materials, respectively. Causing a change in the relative fluorescence intensity of functionalized MOFs, resulting in selective detection of formaldehyde and amine compounds with the detection limit of 0.058 μM and 0.0017 μM (ethylenediamine), respectively. These two ratiometric fluorescent probes were successfully applied for quantitative detection of formaldehyde in beer and ethylenediamine in anti-inflammatory agents, demonstrating great practical potential for residual hazardous substance monitoring in food or medicine.