Fast synthesis of bimetallic metal-organic frameworks based on dielectric barrier discharge for analytical atomic spectrometry and ratiometric fluorescent sensing.

• A new strategy based on dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) was used to prepare bimetallic MOFs. • The proposed method was fast, facile, energy-saving and green compared to the conventional methods. • The prepared UiO-66(Zr/Ce) was applied to atomic spectrometry with high selectivity in Se(IV) absorption. • The prepared Tb 1.7 Eu 0.3 BDC 3 (H 2 O) 4 was used as the probe for ratiometric fluorescent sensing of DPA. Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) has recently been validated by us as a fast, facile and green strategy for the preparation of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), while the so-prepared MOFs still await further application as functional materials. Moreover, bimetallic MOFs have been reported to be advantageous over their single-metal counterparts for diverse applications, which were for the first time synthesized based on DBD in this work, with UiO-66(Zr/Ce) and Tb 1.7 Eu 0.3 (BDC) 3 (H 2 O) 4 obtained within 20 min, much shorter than that for the conventional methods. The UiO-66(Zr/Ce) showed highly selective absorption of Se(IV), and the determination and speciation analysis of Se by atomic spectrometry were accomplished with improved sensitivity and good selectivity if using UiO-66(Zr/Ce) as the absorbent for Se(IV) preconcentration prior to the measurement. The Tb 1.7 Eu 0.3 (BDC) 3 (H 2 O) 4 acted as the probe for ratiometric fluorescent sensing of dipicolinic acid (DPA), with the performance similar to other Tb-Eu MOFs synthesized by the conventional methods. This work demonstrated that bimetallic MOFs could be efficiently synthesized by the DBD-based strategy and further applied to spectrometric analysis, with similar performance to or even expanded application scope of the previously reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]