An octahedral {Mn24} coordination cage as highly efficient multifunctional sensor

• An octahedral manganese-calixarene coordination cage has been designed and synthesized by solvothermal method, which exhibits specific luminescence property and excellent water stability. • This cage shows highly selective and sensitive detection ability for Cr (VI), 2-NP, and 2,4-DNP in aqueous solutions via luminescence quenching. • The possible mechanism for the fluorescence quenching of this cage caused by CrO 4 2- /Cr 2 O 7 2- and 2-NP/2,4-DNP have been discussed. A porous octahedral manganese-calixarene coordination cage ( SWU-4 ) was designed and synthesized by solvothermal method, which showed specific luminescence property and excellent water stability. Luminescence sensing experiments indicated that SWU-4 exhibited obvious fluorescence quenching for detecting CrO 4 2- , Cr 2 O 7 2- , and MnO 4 - , with the LOD values of 3.81 × 10 -6 , 7.43 × 10 -6 mol/L, and 5.19× 10 -6 mol/L, respectively. Moreover, SWU-4 could highly efficiently detect 2-NP and 2,4-DNP with the LOD values of 1.64 × 10 -5 and 6.64 × 10 -6 mol/L, respectively. These results demonstrated that SWU-4 revealed a great potential as a high-sensitivity sensor for the detection of CrO 4 2- , Cr 2 O 7 2- , and MnO 4 - , as well as highly toxic nitrogen-containing aromatic explosives, such as 2-NP and 2,4-DNP. A {Mn 24 } coordination cage as highly efficient multifunctional sensor in the detection of CrO 4 2- , Cr 2 O 7 2- , and MnO 4 - , as well as NACs.