Porous Organic Framework Materials for the Sensing of Food Contaminants

Food safety is a critical public health issue, with contamination occurring from farm to table. With increasingly stringent pollutant limits and growing sample throughput demands, conventional testing technologies face significant limitations in sensitivity, selectivity, and analysis speed, reducing their suitability for real-time monitoring and on-site screening. Fundamentally, sensor performance is ultimately dictated by the rational design and engineering of underlying material architectures. Therefore, focusing on novel multifunctional materials as a breakthrough point represents a practical and viable approach to overcoming the current challenges. Organic framework materials (OFMs) with porous architectures have become a significant focus of research for the development of highly sensitive, rapid-detection platforms, owing to their customizable structures and diverse functionalities. This paper systematically reviews the typical applications, photoelectrical detection mechanisms, and performance metrics of five novel porous organic framework materials (MOFs, COFs, HOFs, SOFs, XOFs) as sensors for detecting food contaminants bottlenecks in reproducibility, stability, and cost associated with large-scale implementation, providing reference directions for subsequent material optimization and the development of on-site detection equipment.