Highly sensitive and selective detection of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol using covalent-organic polymer luminescent probes

Abstract

Rapid and sensitive detection of nitroaromatic explosives has attracted considerable attention due to their serious harm to our world. In this work, two porous luminescent covalent-organic polymers (COP-401 and COP-301) have been synthesized through copolymerization of double ligands. The results indicate that the two COPs with high thermal stability show significant luminescence quenching effects for nitroaromatic explosives. In particular, the two COPs exhibit not only a high sensitivity (about 1 ppm) for nitoraromatic explosives, but also an extremely high selectivity for 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (PA), which suggests that they are promising luminescent probes for highly sensitive and selective detection of nitroaromatic explosives, especially for PA.