Review—Metal-Organic Frameworks Composites for Electrochemical Detection of Heavy Metal Ions in Aqueous Medium

Abstract

The development of precise sensors to detect hazardous heavy metal ions (HMIs) in an aqueous medium has recently attracted much attention. Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) with large specific surface areas, more active sites, and flexible chemical structures have received tremendous research interest in many applications. MOFs composites blended with various functional materials are well suited for the electrochemical sensing of HMIs, because of their synergetic properties, including abundant active sites, enhanced electrical conductivity, and increased chemical stability. While MOFs composites’ synthesis protocols, modification techniques, and potential applications have been addressed in the previous reports, there is an increasing awareness of electrochemical detection of HMIs using MOFs composites. This review explicitly summarizes the electrochemical sensing of HMIs using various MOFs-based composites, including MOFs-carbon, MOFs-polymer, MOFs-metal nanoparticles, and MOFs-other composites. In addition, the challenges and opportunities towards electrochemical sensing with the MOFs composite-based materials are discussed.