Recent advances in metal/covalent organic framework-based materials for photoelectrochemical sensing applications

Owing to its unique features including low background noise, high signal-to-noise ratio, and rapid response, photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensing is a state-of-the-art platform for rapidly and accurately monitoring target compounds. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are key porous crystalline materials that show exceptional potential for application in PEC sen-sors. A timely and systematic review of the recent progress made and future research trends is valuable for accelerating MOF/COF-based PEC sensor development. This review first discusses the photoactive MOF/COF design principles and key PEC performance control factors by elucidating typical strategies for designing and fabricating photoactive MOFs/COFs to improve photoexcitation, charge separation/trans-fer. Then, an overview of the considerable progress made in applying MOF/COF-based materials to PEC sensing is presented including pristine MOFs/COFs, MOF/COF-based heterojunctions, MOF derivatives, and MOF/COF hybrids. Finally, the critical challenges for practical applications of MOF/COF-based PEC sensors and the research prospects are briefly discussed. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.