Metal-Organic Gels Based on Carboxyl-Functionalized Benzimidazole and Their Stimuli Responsivenesses

Introducing Zirconium Organic Gels for Efficient Radioiodine Gas Removal

Iodine radioisotope, as one of the most important fission products of uranium, may cause severe damage to human health when it is accidentally discharged into the environment. Hence, efficient removal of radioactive iodine is one of the most critical issues for both used nuclear fuel (UNF) reprocessing and environmental remediation. In this work, three metal-organic gels (MOGs) were introduced for iodine removal. The presented zirconium-based MOGs, namely, CWNU, CWNU-NH₂, and CWNU-2NH₂, were prepared via moderate solvothermal reactions. These MOGs all exhibit excellent chemical stability and reusability, marked iodine sorption capability, and favorable machinability, which can even rival commercial ones. The sorption capacities are determined to be 3.36, 4.10, and 4.20 g/g, respectively. The increased amount of amino group is considered to be responsible for the elevated iodine sorption capacity and kinetics, as confirmed by combined sorption studies and XPS analysis. The presented work sheds light on the utilization of MOGs for radioiodine capture.

Colorimetric and fluorescent chemosensor for highly selective and sensitive relay detection of Cu2+ and H2PO4- in aqueous media

In this manuscript, a new colorimetric and fluorescent chemosensor (T) was designed and synthesized, it could successively detect Cu²⁺ and H₂PO₄^- in DMSO/H₂O (v/v=9:1, pH=7.2) buffer solution with high selectivity and sensitivity. When added Cu²⁺ ions into the solution of T, it showed a color changes from yellow to colorless, meanwhile, the green fluorescence of sensor T quenched. This recognition behavior was not affected in the presence of other cations, including Hg²⁺, Ag⁺, Ca²⁺, Co²⁺, Ni²⁺, Cd²⁺, Pb²⁺, Zn²⁺, Cr³⁺, and Mg²⁺ ions. More interestingly, the Cu²⁺ ions contain sensor T solution could recover the color and fluorescence upon the addition of H₂PO₄^- anions in the same medium. And other surveyed anions (including F^-, Cl^-, Br^-, I^-, AcO^-, HSO₄^-, ClO₄^-, CN^- and SCN^-) had nearly no influence on the recognition behavior. The detection limits of T to Cu²⁺ and T-Cu²⁺ to H₂PO₄^- were evaluated to be 1.609×10^-8M and 0.994×10^-7M, respectively. In addition, the sensor T also could be served as a recyclable component and the logic gate output was also defined in sensing materials. The test strips based on sensor T were fabricated, which acted as a convenient and efficient Cu²⁺ and H₂PO₄^- test kits.

A carboxylic acid functionalized benzimidazole-based supramolecular gel with multi-stimuli responsive properties

We fabricated an organogel C11-OG and a novel metallogel Pb-MG, both of which exhibit strong blue AIEE in gel states.