The
concentration of Zn2+ is closely related to the
ecological environment and physical health and must be monitored conveniently
and accurately. Herein, a novel coordination polymer, namely, {[Cd2L2(bpy)2]·H2O·0.25DMF}n (CP-1, bpy = 2,2′-bipyridine, H2L = 5-(1H-1,2,4-triazole-1-yl)-1,3-phthalic acid) was synthesized
under solvothermal conditions and can be used for selective detection
of Zn2+ with an extremely low detection limit. Single-crystal
X-ray diffraction analyses revealed that CP-1 exhibits
an interspersed two-dimensional (2D) layer and further constitutes
a 3D layer by weak interactions. Fluorescence experiments showed that CP-1 can be used as an excellent fluorescent sensor for selectively
detecting Zn2+ with the detection limit as low as 0.073
μM. In addition, CP-1 can also be used for the
efficient detection of Cr2O7
2– and phenylglyoxylic acid (PGA) with detection limits of 0.68 and
1.59 μM respectively. Moreover, the mechanism study showed that
the turn-on behavior of CP-1 for detecting Zn2+ can be attributed to absorbance-induced enhancement (ACE), and the
turn-off behavior for detecting Cr2O7
2– and PGA can be attributed to the “internal filtering effect”
(IFE) and the combined effect of photoinduced electron transfer (PET)
and competitive absorption, respectively.