Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) for Chiral Separation and Biosensing

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) provide tunable porosity, structural diversity, and a large specific surface area, rendering them compelling materials for many analytical and diagnostic applications. This review highlights recent advancements in using MOF-based materials for sample preparation and biosensing applications. In sample preparation, MOFs exhibit remarkable effectiveness in microextraction, solid-phase extraction (SPE), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), and capillary electrochromatography (CEC), offering improved sensitivity and selectivity. The integration of chirality into MOF structures has generated novel prospects for enantioselective separation, an essential method in pharmaceuticals and drug studies that requires the isolation of particular enantiomers. MOFs offer significant benefits in biosensing such as enhanced sensitivity, exceptional selectivity, and compatibility with miniaturized and integrated sensor systems. MOF-based materials are employed in many detection techniques, including colorimetric, fluorescence, electrochemical, and electroluminescence. These sensors/biosensors provide both qualitative and quantitative detection of diverse analytes, such as amino acids, vitamins, heavy metals, pathogens, biomarkers, and nucleic acids, consequently improving the diagnosis of emerging diseases and refining the monitoring of biological and environmental samples. The multifaceted properties of MOFs render them crucial materials for developing next-generation diagnostic and therapeutic devices.