ABSTRACT
Porous materials are highly explored platforms for fertilizer delivery. Among porous materials, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an important class of coordination polymers in which metal ions and organic electron donors as linkers are assembled to form crystalline structures with stable nanoporosity. Selected amino acids were inherently found to have the capacity to hold the leaf cuticle. Hence, MOF synthesis was attempted in the presence of amino acids, which can act as surface terminators and can assist as hands to hold to the leaf for a controlled nutrient supply. By serendipity, the amino acids were found to act as modulators, resulting in well-stabilized porous MOF structures with iron metal nodes, which are often noted to be unstable. Thus, the composite, i.e., (MOF@aa) MOF modulated with amino acids, has efficient nutrient-feeding ability through the foliar route when compared to the control.
ABSTRACT
Ultrathin 2D metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) exhibit a myriad of unparalleled properties, rendering them extensively applicable across various fields. Despite this, developing a 2D MOF sensor for detecting hazardous amines in water remains a formidable challenge. To address this issue, we synthesized Ni-btc MOF ultrathin nanosheets with a thickness of approximately 4.15 nm for the detection of amines in water. These nanosheets demonstrated a notable "turn-on" fluorescence response in the presence of ammonia and aliphatic amines. The detection limit for aliphatic amines ranged from 297 to 424 nM, while for ammonia, it reached an impressive low limit of around 42 nM, which is an excellent value compared to other reported MOFs for ammonia sensing in water. Density functional theory calculations elucidated the mechanism underlying fluorescence enhancement. Additionally, a mixed matrix membrane based on MOF nanosheets was fabricated for real-time sensing that exhibits an immediate color change in the presence of ammonia and aliphatic amines.
