A chiral lanthanide metal-organic framework for selective sensing of Fe(iii) ions.

A new luminescent lanthanide metal-organic framework was synthesized under hydrothermal conditions by introducing the tetracarboxylic acid ligand (H4bptc) as a chromophore to sensitize the luminescence of the Tb(3+) ion. Interestingly, despite the achiral nature of H4bptc, the resulting framework exhibited rare chiral helical channels. The luminescence studies revealed that this material showed a highly selective fluorescence quenching response to Fe(3+) ions in liquid suspension, which can be conveniently observed by the naked eye under UV light. Thus, this material can be potentially used as a chemosensor for sensing Fe(3+) ions and its selective luminescence quenching response can be explained in terms of the competitive absorption mechanism.