Zinc-metal–organic frameworks with tunable UV diffuse-reflectance as sunscreens

BACKGROUND: UV exposure continues to induce many health issues, though commercial sunscreens are available. Novel UV filters with high safety and efficacy are urgently needed. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) could be a suitable platform for UV filter development, due to their tunable optical, electrical, and photoelectric properties by precise controlled synthesis. RESULTS: Herein, four zinc-based MOFs with various bandgap energies were chose to investigate their optical behaviors and evaluate their possibility as sunscreens. Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) was found to possess the highest and widest UV reflectance, thereby protecting against sunburn and DNA damage on mouse skin and even achieving a comparable or higher anti-UV efficacy relative to the commercially available UV filters, TiO(2) or ZnO, on pig skin, a model that correlates well with human skin. Also, ZIF-8 exerted appealing characteristics for topical skin use with low radical production, low skin penetration, low toxicity, high transparency, and high stability. CONCLUSION: These results confirmed ZIF-8 could potentially be a safe and effective sunscreen surrogate for human, and MOFs could be a novel source to develop more effective and safe UV filters. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-022-01292-1.