Benign Preparation of Metal–Organic Frameworks of Trimesic Acid and Cu, Co or Ni for Potential Sensor Applications

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have been constructed using trimesic acid (TMA) as organic linker and Co(II), Ni(II) or Cu(II) metal ions from their corresponding aqueous chloride salts at room temperature. The prepared TMA–M (M: Co, Ni, and Cu) MOFs have been characterized in terms of their porosity and optical, thermal, electrical, and structural properties. The prepared MOFs were characterized in terms of their porosity through Brunauer–Emmett–Teller measurements, yielding a value of 330 m2/g for the TMA–Cu MOF. Structural analysis and thermal characterization of the prepared MOFs were done by using Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), respectively. The optical properties were analyzed by fluorescence spectroscopy. Additionally, TMA–M MOF disks were prepared and their conductivities determined by room-temperature I–V measurements. The conductivity of the TMA–M MOFs was calculated to be between 7.97 × 10−7 S/cm and 5.39 × 10−9 S/cm.