Luminescent Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) based films as optical gas sensors

Abstract

Over the last two decades, materials chemistry has developed a new class of coordination compounds, constructed by the coordination of ions or clusters of ions and organic ligand whose most interesting characteristic is their vast and permanent porosity and components tuneability. These compounds are called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and have attracted the scientific community's attention for their use in different research fields, i.e. gas separation and storage, catalysis, drug delivery, or chemical sensing. More specifically, for this last application, MOFs with luminescent properties are used as optical sensors. Based on this, this thesis studies the development of MOF films using different polymers as a matrix for detecting gaseous analytes.

More specifically, Chapter 1 offers a historical context of MOFs and their development over the years, and some definitions are given to understand this thesis's frame of reference. Chapter 2 brings a theoretical background of the techniques used during the research as well as the principles and models of chemical fluorescent sensing. Next, Chapter 3 describes all experimental conditions along with materials or chemicals used during this thesis.

Then, The subsequent chapters will describe the fabrication of different mixed-matrix membranes using cellulose acetate (Chapter 4), poly(methyl methacrylate) (Chapter 5 and Chapter 6) and poly(dimethylsiloxane) (Chapter 6 and Chapter 7) and their use as an effective optical sensor. Finally, the thesis will conclude with general conclusions obtained during the research in Chapter 8.