IRMOF-3: A fluorescent nanoscale metal organic frameworks for selective sensing of glucose and Fe (III) ions without any modification.

The amine functionalized isoreticular metal-organic framework-3 (IRMOF-3) is synthesized by hydrothermal method. Till now, it's widely used in the area of gas separation, adsorption, and catalysis due to large surface area, structural stability, and tunability. Here, we have reported the use of fluorescent nanoscale IRMOF-3 for highly selective detection of glucose as well as Fe3+ ions without any modification. This is due to NH2 and COOH groups are present on the surface of IRMOF-3 to bind cis-diols of the glucose molecule via host-guest interaction, and Fe3+ ions via ligand to metal charge transfer. The Synthesized IRMOF-3 has average diameter of 160 ± 20 nm and interestingly possess deep blue fluorescent emission spectra at 460 nm with quantum yield 17.3%. Using fluorometric assay, the limit of detection (LOD) of glucose and Fe3+ ions was found to be 0.56 μM and 4.2 nM respectively. More importantly, the synthesized IRMOF-3 is also utilized for detection of glucose and Fe3+ ions in bio-environmental samples.