Highly luminescent metal–organic frameworks (LMOFs) have received great attention for their potential use in energy-efficient general lighting devices such as white-light-emitting diodes (WLEDs); however, achieving strong emission with controllable color, especially high-quality white light, remains a considerable challenge. Herein, we present a new strategy to encapsulate in situ multiple dyes into nanocrystalline ZIF-8 pores to form an efficient dyes@MOF system. Using this strategy, we build three models, namely, multiphase single-shell dye@ZIF-8, single-phase single-shell dyes@ZIF-8, and single-phase multishell dyes@ZIF-8, to systematically and fine-tune the white emission color by varying the components and concentration of encapsulated dyes. The study of these three models demonstrates the importance of the multishell structure, which can effectively reduce the interactions such as Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between encapsulated dyes. This energy transfer would otherwise be unavoidable in a single-shell setting, which often reduces the efficiency of white-light emission in the dyes@MOF system. This approach offers a new perspective not only for fine-tuning the emission color within nanoporous dyes@MOFs but also for fabricating MOF nanocrystals that are easily solution-processable. The strategy may also facilitate the development of other types of MOF–guest nanocomposite systems.

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Luminescent metal–organic frameworks (LMOFs) demonstrate strong potential for a broad range of applications due to their tunable compositions and structures. However, the methodical control of the LMOF emission properties remains a great challenge. Herein, we show that linker engineering is a powerful method for systematically tuning the emission behavior of UiO-68 type metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) to achieve full-color emission, using 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole and its derivative-based dicarboxylic acids as luminescent linkers. To address the fluorescence self-quenching issue caused by densely packed linkers in some of the resultant UiO-68 type MOF structures, we apply a mixed-linker strategy by introducing nonfluorescent linkers to diminish the self-quenching effect. Steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) experiments reveal that aggregation-caused quenching can indeed be effectively reduced as a result of decreasing the concentration of emissive linkers, thereby leading to significantly enhanced quantum yield and increased lifetime.

A novel nanosensor was explored for the highly selective detection of intracellular carbon monoxide (CO) by surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) on the basis of palladacycle carbonylation. By assembling new synthesized palladacycles (PC) on the surface of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), SERS nanosensors (AuNP/PC) were prepared with good SERS activity and reactivity with CO. When the AuNP/PC nanosensors were incubated with a CO-containing system, carbonylation of the PC assembled on AuNPs was initiated, and the corresponding SERS spectra of AuNP/PC changed significantly, which allowed the carbonylation reaction to be directly observed in situ. Upon SERS observation of CO-dependent carbonylation, this SERS nanosensor was used for the detection of CO under physiological conditions. Moreover, benefiting from the specificity of the reaction coupled with the fingerprinting feature of SERS, the developed nanosensor demonstrated high selectivity over other biologically relevant species. In vivo studies further indicated that CO in normal human liver cells and HeLa cells at concentrations as low as 0.5 μM were successfully detected with the proposed SERS strategy, demonstrating its great promise for the analytical requirements in studies of physiopathological events involved with CO.

A bio-inspired design of using metal-organic framework (MOF) microcrystals with well-defined multi-shelled hollow structures was used as a matrix to host multiple guests including molecules and nanoparticles at separated locations to form a hierarchical material, mimicking biological structures. The interactions such as energy transfer (ET) between different guests are regulated by precisely fixing them in the MOF shells or encapsulating them in the cavities between the MOF shells. The proof-of-concept design is demonstrated by hosting chromophore molecules including rhodamine 6G (R6G) and 7-amino-4-(trifluoromethyl)coumarin (C-151), as well as metal nanoparticles (Pd NPs) into the multi-shelled hollow zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8). We could selectively establish or diminish the guest-to-framework and guest-to-guest ET. This work provides a platform to construct complex multifunctional materials, especially those need precise separation control of multi-components.

Biocatalytic transformations in living organisms, such as multi-enzyme catalytic cascades, proceed in different cellular membrane-compartmentalized organelles with high efficiency. Nevertheless, it remains challenging to mimicking biocatalytic cascade processes in natural systems. Herein, we demonstrate that multi-shelled metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can be used as a hierarchical scaffold to spatially organize enzymes on nanoscale to enhance cascade catalytic efficiency. Encapsulating multi-enzymes with multi-shelled MOFs by epitaxial shell-by-shell overgrowth leads to 5.8~13.5-fold enhancements in catalytic efficiencies compared with free enzymes in solution. Importantly, multi-shelled MOFs can act as a multi-spatial-compartmental nanoreactor that allows physically compartmentalize multiple enzymes in a single MOF nanoparticle for operating incompatible tandem biocatalytic reaction in one pot. Additionally, we use nanoscale Fourier transform infrared (nano-FTIR) spectroscopy to resolve nanoscale heterogeneity of vibrational activity associated to enzymes encapsulated in multi-shelled MOFs. Furthermore, multi-shelled MOFs enable facile control of multi-enzyme positions according to specific tandem reaction routes, in which close positioning of enzyme-1-loaded and enzyme-2-loaded shells along the inner-to-outer shells could effectively facilitate mass transportation to promote efficient tandem biocatalytic reaction. This work is anticipated to shed new light on designing efficient multi-enzyme catalytic cascades to encourage applications in many chemical and pharmaceutical industrial processes.

While limited choice of emissive organic linkers with systematic emission tunability presents ag reat challenge to investigate energy transfer (ET) over the whole visible light range with designable directions,l uminescent metal-organic frameworks (LMOFs) may serve as an ideal platform for such study due to their tunable structure and composition. Herein, five Zr 6 cluster-based LMOFs,HIAM-400X (X = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4) are prepared using 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole and its derivativebased tetratopic carboxylic acids as organic linkers.T he accessible unsaturated metal sites confer HIAM-400X as apristine scaffold for linker installation. Six full-color emissive 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole and its derivative-based dicarboxylic acids (L) were successfully installed into HIAM-400X matrix to form HIAM-400X-L, in whichthe ET can be facilely tuned by controlling its direction, either from the inserted linkers to pristine MOFs or from the pristine MOFs to inserted linkers, and over the whole range of visible light. The combination of the pristine MOFs and the second linkers via linker installation creates ap owerfult wo-dimensional space in tuning the emission via ET in LMOFs.

Hydrogen generation via photocatalysis-driven water splitting provides a convenient approach to turn solar energy into chemical fuel. The development of photocatalysis system that can effectively harvest visible light for hydrogen generation is an essential task in order to utilize this technology. Herein, a kind of cadmium free Zn-Ag-In-S (ZAIS) colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) that shows remarkably photocatalytic efficiency in the visible region is developed. More importantly, a nanocomposite based on the combination of 0D ZAIS CQDs and 2D MoS nanosheet is developed. This can leverage the strong light harvesting capability of CQDs and catalytic performance of MoS simultaneously. As a result, an excellent external quantum efficiency of 40.8% at 400 nm is achieved for CQD-based hydrogen generation catalyst. This work presents a new platform for the development of high-efficiency photocatalyst based on 0D-2D nanocomposite.