MOF nanozymes: active sites and sensing applications

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous organic–inorganic coordination materials with numerous active sites, enabling them to mimic the properties of natural enzymes and making them highly promising for sensing applications. This review provides a detailed overview of recent advancements in leveraging MOFs for the design of catalytic active sites in nanozymes. MOFs utilize metal ions and organic ligands as active centers for biomimetic catalysis, while their porous frameworks efficiently bind and stabilize multiple guest active units. Furthermore, MOFs can undergo chemical transformations to produce derivatives such as porous carbon materials and nanostructured metal compounds, enhancing their catalytic performance and broadening their applications as nanozymes. This review also explores the progress of MOF-based nanozymes across various catalytic modes in analytical sensing, highlighting their ability to significantly improve detection sensitivity, selectivity, and range. Additionally, the critical role of diverse active sites in sensing processes is emphasized, with attention to the design and synthesis strategies required to optimize the performance of MOF nanozymes. Finally, the review discusses future prospects for the development of MOF nanozymes and outlines key challenges that must be addressed to advance this field.