Advancements in Functionalizable Metal-Organic Frameworks for Flexible Sensing Electronics

Flexible sensing electronics, with good lightweight and flexibility, can maintain excellent sensing capability while fitting complex curved surfaces, having important applications in wearable devices, medical health monitoring, and robotics. The rapid advancement of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) has created the prospect of additional improvements in flexible sensors. The porous structure brings them a high specific surface area, meaning that when used as sensitive materials for sensors, excellent sensitivity and selectivity can be achieved. Meanwhile, the sensing performance and stability of MOF-based flexible sensors can be further enhanced by modifying MOFs’ structure or compounding them with other materials, which is crucial for manufacturing flexible sensors utilized in complex working conditions. Herein, the advancement of MOFs and MOF-based flexible sensors is systematically reviewed. First, the common series of MOFs, the preparation and modification methods, and the highly conductive MOFs are introduced. MOFs’ application in flexible sensing is then expounded, including self-powered mechanical sensing, gas sensing, liquid analyte sensing, and multi-target/mode sensing. It is believed that as MOFs with better response capabilities are developed and manufacturing processes advance, MOF-based flexible sensors are expected to be more widely used in the future and promote the further development of technologies such as human-computer interaction technology.