Ultrathin two-dimensional porous organic nanosheets with molecular rotors for chemical sensing

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01293-x
• Publication Date: 2017-10-20T14:36:51Z
• Authors: Jinqiao Dong; Kang Zhang; Xu Li; Yuhong Qian; Hai Zhu; Daqiang Yuan; Qing-Hua Xu; Jianwen Jiang; Dan Zhao
• Keywords: Tetraphenylethylene; Explosive detection; Carbon fibers

Abstract Molecular rotors have played an important role in recent materials chemistry. Although several studies on functional containing molecular been reported for fluorescence sensing, this concept has yet to be realized two-dimensional (2D) materials. Here we report the preparation of all-carbon, π-conjugated 2D porous organic nanosheets, named NUS-24, which contain flexible tetraphenylethylene (TPE) units as rotors. NUS-24 nanosheets exhibit high stability, large lateral size, and ultrathin thickness (2–5 nm). The dynamic TPE exposed surface can restricted aggregated state with different water fractions, is reminiscent aggregation-induced emission mechanism, thereby leading size-selective turn-on by volatile compounds. Significantly, its composite membranes show much higher sensitivity selectivity toward Fe 3+ ions nitro-containing compounds suggesting their potential applications explosive detection environmental monitoring.