Cucurbit[6]uril-based supramolecular assemblies incorporating metal complexes with multiaromatic ligands as structure-directing agent for detection of aromatic amines and nitroaromatic compounds

[Display omitted] •Supramolecular assemblies with cucurbit[6]uril and metal multiaromatic carboxylate complexes were achieved.•Non-covalent including outer-surface interactions play important role in formation the assemblies.•Sensing aromatic amines and nitroaromatic compounds were investigated. Efficiently and selectively detecting definite organic compound is attractive but challenging. In this study, we report two novel cucurbit[6]uril (Q[6]) - based supramolecular assemblies {(NH4)2[Zn(H2O)6][Mg(TPTCA)(H2O)2]4(Q[6])6}·66H2O (1) and {[Zn(PBPCA)(H2O)2]Q[6]}·21H2O (2) [H3TPTCA = [1,1’:3’,1”-terphenyl]-4,4”,5’-tricarboxylic acid and H2PBPCA = pyridine-3,5-bis(phenyl-4-carboxylic acid)] by using metal complexes with multiaromatic carboxylate ligands as structure-directing agent. The formation of these assemblies is ascribed to the non-covalent π···π, C-H···π, hydrogen bonding interactions between the outer-surface of Q[6] and coordination complexes. More impressively, 1 and 2 exhibit enhanced fluorescence compared with the ligands and can serve as chemical sensors for aromatic amines and nitroaromatic compounds, particularly for 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP), via fluorescence quenching effect with high selectivity and sensitivity.