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A cerium (Ce)-doped metal-organic framework composite (Ce/DUT-52) was prepared by using a solvothermal method and was explored as a sorbent for dispersive solid phase extraction (DSPE) of three estrogens (α-estradiol, estrone, and hexestrol) in human urine samples. After doping with Ce(III), Ce/DUT-52 exhibited more attractive features involving a higher specific surface area (774.7 m 2 g -1 ) and zeta potential (31.4 mV), which made it an efficient adsorbent for the separation and enrichment of estrogens. The factors influencing DSPE efficiency such as the adsorbent amount, extraction time, pH, NaCl concentration, elution solvent and elution volume were investigated in detail. Under the evaluated conditions, Ce/DUT-52 showed good reusability ( n = 6, RSDs ≤ 4.8%). Notably, the cofunction of electrostatic interaction, hydrophobic interaction, hydrogen bonding and π-π interaction might play major roles between estrogens and Ce/DUT-52. Finally, coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), a fast and sensitive method was established, which provided low limits of detection (1.5-2.0 ng mL -1 ), wide linear ranges (3-500 ng mL -1 ) and satisfactory recoveries (79.8-96.1%). The results demonstrated that Ce/DUT-52 had excellent adsorption ability to the targets and the developed method provided an alternative strategy for the determination of trace estrogens or other compounds with similar chemical structures in urine samples.

The detection of organophosphorus (OP) compounds, which are extremely toxic, is a requirement in many application fields such as food security. Mass-type chemical sensors based on ultra-sensitive resonant microcantilevers exhibit high comparative advantages in OP compound detection. However, it is still a big challenge to construct a sensing film in situ from corrosive precursors on resonant cantilevers for batch fabrication. In this work, Parylene-C is patterned and a sample reservoir is formed on the free-end of resonant microcantilever for constructing the sensing material directly. Not only utilized for corrosive precursor loading and in situ sensing material construction, the Parylene-C film can also be used to effectively protect the integrated elements from damage by corrosive substances. For extremely toxic OP molecule detection, a typical metal–organic framework (MOF) of UiO-66 film has been regioselectively constructed in situ on the Parylene-C patterned microcantilevers. A limit of detection (LOD) of 5 ppb for the OP simulant dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) is achieved. The in situ MOF construction method manifests satisfactory consistency for sensor batch fabrication. The DMMP sensing mechanism is identified as the specific host–guest interaction between the UiO-66 and OP molecule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, ultrasensitive detection of 10 ppb CO has been realized using metal organic framework (MOF) crystals of Ni-MOF-74 as gravimetric-type sensing material with resonant microcantilever sensors. Due to the specific interaction between CO molecules and the active transitional metal centers of Ni 2+ in the Ni-MOF-74 crystal, the Ni-MOF-74 material with ultra-high surface area and nanoporous structure possesses large absorption capacity to CO gas. By loading the Ni-MOF-74 material onto the resonant microcantilever, the formed gravimetric sensor exhibits high-performance sensing to CO at trace level. The experimentally obtained limit of detection (LOD) of the sensor to CO reaches finer than 10 ppb (parts per billion in volume), which indicates an extremely high CO-detection sensitivity of the sensor. Besides the excellent sensitivity, the sensor also shows remarkable repeatability and long-term stability. Eight kinds of interfering gases are tested and a fine selectivity of the sensor is verified. This work indicates that MOF materials such as Ni-MOF-74 are promising in gravimetric-type gas sensing applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aromatic amine such as aniline is one kind of carcinogenic substances that needs to be detected at low concentration. To sense trace level aniline, high performance sensing material is of great importance. Herein, metal organic framework of Zn 4 O(1,4-benzenedicarboxylate) 3 (commonly abbreviated as MOF-5) with abundant hierarchical nanopores is firstly employed as mass-type sensing material for low concentration aniline detection. By using one typical micro-gravimetric transducer of resonant microcantilever, the aniline-adsorbing induced mass-addition of MOF-5 is transformed to the detectible sensing signal of frequency shift. Based on resonant microcantilever with mass resolution of 1.5 pg/Hz, the fabricated sensor exhibits good sensitivity for aniline detection. The limit of detection is better than 1.4 ppm, and the selectivity is satisfactory to nine kinds of common interfering gases. The three-cycle repeatability of the sensor is also investigated with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 4%. After 20 days, the sensor only shows a negligible response degradation which represents a good reproducibility. Materials Studio simulation results manifest that 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic ligand in MOF-5 crystals is the preferential site for aniline molecules adsorbing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]