Novel cadmium(II) frameworks with mixed carboxylate and imidazole-containing ligands for selective detection of antibiotics

Abstract With increasing and abuse of antibiotics, selective and sensitive detection of specific antibiotics is required. In this work, we report novel Cd(II)-based metal–organic framework (MOF) [Cd 2 (L)(bpda) 2 ]·4DMF·4H 2 O·MeOH ( 1 ) by using mixed organic ligands 3,3′,5,5′-tetra(1H-imidazol-1-yl)biphenyl (L) and 4,4′-carbonyldibenzoic acid (H 2 bpda). MOF 1 transformed to [Cd 2 (L)(bpda) 2 ]·3DMF·H 2 O ( 2 ) at room temperature via a single-crystal-to-single-crystal process, and the emission of 2 can be quenched efficiently by trace amounts of NFs (nitrofurazone, NZF; nitrofurantoin, NFT; furazolidone, FZD) antibiotics with detection limits of 252 ppb, 465 ppb, 969 ppb for NZF, NFT and FZD, respectively, even in the presence of other competing antibiotics such as sulfadiazine (SDZ). The results show that 2 is a potential luminescent sensor for antibiotics.