Abstract
The architecture of self-assembled host molecules can profoundly affect the properties of the encapsulated guests. For example, a rigid cage with small windows can efficiently protect its contents from the environment; in contrast, tube-shaped, flexible hosts with large openings and an easily accessible cavity are ideally suited for catalysis. Here, we report a “Janus” nature of a Pd6L4 coordination host previously reported to exist exclusively as a tube isomer (T). We show that upon encapsulating various tetrahedrally shaped guests, T can reconfigure into a cage-shaped host (C) in quantitative yield. Extracting the guest affords empty C, which is metastable and spontaneously relaxes to T, and the T⇄C interconversion can be repeated for multiple cycles. Reversible toggling between two vastly different isomers paves the way toward controlling functional properties of coordination hosts “on demand”.
| Original language | English |
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| Journal | Journal of the American Chemical Society |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2023 |
Funding
We acknowledge funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the European Research Council (grant agreement 820008). We also thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for support through priority program SPP1807 (CL489/3-2) and RESOLV Cluster of Excellence EXC2033 (project number 390677874). A.B.G. acknowledges funding from the Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program. DFT calculations were carried out using resources provided by the Wrocław Center for Networking and Supercomputing, grant 329. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Catalysis
- General Chemistry
- Biochemistry
- Colloid and Surface Chemistry