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Gas detection by structural variations of fluorescent guest molecules in a flexible porous coordination polymer

Nature Materials volume 10, pages 787–793 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The development of a new methodology for visualizing and detecting gases is imperative for various applications. Here, we report a novel strategy in which gas molecules are detected by signals from a reporter guest that can read out a host structural transformation. A composite between a flexible porous coordination polymer and fluorescent reporter distyrylbenzene (DSB) selectively adsorbed CO2 over other atmospheric gases. This adsorption induced a host transformation, which was accompanied by conformational variations of the included DSB. This read-out process resulted in a critical change in DSB fluorescence at a specific threshold pressure. The composite shows different fluorescence responses to CO2 and acetylene, compounds that have similar physicochemical properties. Our system showed, for the first time, that fluorescent molecules can detect gases without any chemical interaction or energy transfer. The host–guest coupled transformations play a pivotal role in converting the gas adsorption events into detectable output signals.

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Figure 1: Schematic illustration for detection of gas molecules by coupled structural transformations of a flexible PCP framework and a reporter molecule.
Figure 2: Introduction of reporter molecule DSB into flexible host 1, and structural and fluorescence changes of the composite by co-adsorption of CO2.
Figure 3: Selective adsorption of CO2 among atmospheric gases, and the changes of host structure, guest conformation, and fluorescence at the specific pressure of CO2.
Figure 4: Differentiation and fluorescence detection of multiple gases, CO2 and C2H2, that have similar physicochemical properties.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Murata Science Foundation, ERATO-JST, a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A), and a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Area ‘Emergence in Chemistry’ from MEXT. The synchrotron radiation experiments were carried out at BL02B2 in SPring-8 with the approval of the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) (Proposal no. 2009B1320).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Katsura, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan

    Nobuhiro Yanai, Koji Kitayama, Yuh Hijikata, Takashi Uemura & Susumu Kitagawa

  2. ERATO Kitagawa Integrated Pores Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Kyoto Research Park Bldg #3, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto, 600-8815, Japan

    Hiroshi Sato, Ryotaro Matsuda & Susumu Kitagawa

  3. Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan

    Hiroshi Sato, Ryotaro Matsuda & Susumu Kitagawa

  4. Department of Physical Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka Prefecture University, Sakai, Osaka 590-0035, Japan

    Yoshiki Kubota

  5. Structural Materials Science Laboratory, Harima Institute, RIKEN SPring-8 Center and CREST, JST, Sayo-gun, Hyogo, 679-5148, Japan

    Masaki Takata

  6. Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan

    Motohiro Mizuno

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  1. Nobuhiro Yanai
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Contributions

N.Y., K.K., and T.U. designed and carried out the experiments. Y.H. performed the density functional calculations. H.S. and R.M. performed in-situ infrared and Raman measurements. Y.K. and M.T. assisted with the in situ synchrotron XRPD measurements and carried out the Le Bail fitting analysis of the XRPD data. M.M. contributed 2H NMR measurements. N.Y., K.K., T.U., and S.K. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Takashi Uemura or Susumu Kitagawa.

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Yanai, N., Kitayama, K., Hijikata, Y. et al. Gas detection by structural variations of fluorescent guest molecules in a flexible porous coordination polymer. Nature Mater 10, 787–793 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3104

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