Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) have been promoted as promising materials for a plethora of potential applications including chemical sensing, catalysis and for photovoltaics. MOFs are porous crystalline materials comprised of metal nodes and linking organic ligands that can be highly modular, allowing them to be tailored towards their intended applications. MOFs, however, are typically synthesised as crystalline powders which makes their incorporation into devices and sensors a challenge.
The incorporation of MOFs into films has received significant attention, with many approaches used. These approaches include SURMOFs, where MOFs are grown directly onto surfaces, to the development of MOF composites with an appropriate support material. The incorporation of MOFs into cellulose acetate films has significant advantages from a biocompatibility and recyclability perspective.[2]
In this presentation, we report the incorporation of several fluorescent chiral chemical sensor MOFs into cellulose acetate films. The chemical sensing properties of the films in the solid-state towards amino acid analytes will be discussed.