Chiral Induction in Buckminsterfullerene Using a Metal-Organic Framework

Metal Clusters Confined in Chiral Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework for Circularly Polarized-Luminescence Inks

Chiroptical activities arising in nanoclusters (NCs) are emerging as one of the most dynamic areas of modern science. However, devising an overarching strategy that is capable of concurrently enhancing the photoluminescence (PL) and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) of metal NCs remains a formidable challenge. Herein, gold and silver nanoclusters (AuNCs, AgNCs) are endowed with CPL, for the first time, through a universal host-guest approach─centered around perturbing a chiral microenvironment within chiral hosts, simultaneously enhancing emissions. Remarkably, the photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of AuNCs has undergone an increase of over 200 times upon confinement, escalating from 0.05% to 12%, and demonstrates a CPL response. Moreover, a three-dimensional (3D) model termed "NCs@CMOF" featuring CPL activity is created using metal cluster-based assembly inks through the process of 3D printing. This work introduces a potentially straightforward and versatile approach for achieving both PL enhancement and CPL activities in metal clusters.

Recent advances in supramolecular fullerene chemistry

Fullerene chemistry has come a long way since 1990, when the first bulk production of C60 was reported. In the past decade, progress in supramolecular chemistry has opened some remarkable and previously unexpected opportunities regarding the selective (multiple) functionalization of fullerenes and their (self)assembly into larger structures and frameworks. The purpose of this review article is to provide a comprehensive overview of these recent developments. We describe how macrocycles and cages that bind strongly to C60 can be used to block undesired addition patterns and thus allow the selective preparation of single-isomer addition products. We also discuss how the emergence of highly shape-persistent macrocycles has opened opportunities for the study of photoactive fullerene dyads and triads as well as the preparation of mechanically interlocked compounds. The preparation of two- or three-dimensional fullerene materials is another research area that has seen remarkable progress over the past few years. Due to the rapidly decreasing price of C60 and C70, we believe that these achievements will translate into all fields where fullerenes have traditionally (third-generation solar cells) and more recently been applied (catalysis, spintronics).

Interfacing metal organic frameworks with polymers or carbon-based materials: from simple to hierarchical porous and nanostructured composites

In the past few years, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have been assembled with (bio)polymers and a series of carbon-based materials (graphene, graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, carbon quantum dots, etc.) leading to a wide range of composites differing in their chemical composition, pore structure and functionality. The objective was mainly to overcome the limitations of MOFs in terms of mechanical properties, chemical stability and processability while imparting novel functionality (electron conductivity, (photo)catalytic activity, etc.) and hierarchical porosity. These composites were considered for numerous applications including gas/liquid adsorption and separation, (photo)catalysis, biomedicine, energy storage, conversion and so on. The performance of such composites depends strongly on their microstructural and physico-chemical properties which are mainly driven by the chemical strategies used to design and process such composites. In this perspective article, we propose to cover this topic and provide a useful survey of recent progress in the synthesis and design of MOFs-carbon material composites. This article will describe the development of composites with increasing complexity in terms of porous architecture, spatial structuration and organisation, and functionality.

Selective Encapsulation and Chiral Induction of C60 and C70 Fullerenes by Axially Chiral Porous Aromatic Cages

Chiral induction has been an important topic in chemistry, not only for its relevance in understanding the mysterious phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking in nature but also due to its critical implications in medicine and the chiral industry. The induced chirality of fullerenes by host-guest interactions has been rarely reported, mainly attributed to their chiral resistance from high symmetry and challenges in their accessibility. Herein, we report two new pairs of chiral porous aromatic cages (PAC), R-PAC-2, S-PAC-2 (with Br substituents) and R-PAC-3, S-PAC-3 (with CH3 substituents) enantiomers. PAC-2, rather than PAC-3, achieves fullerene encapsulation and selective binding of C70 over C60 in fullerene carbon soot. More significantly, the occurrence of chiral induction between R-PAC-2, S-PAC-2 and fullerenes is confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and the intense CD signal within the absorption region of fullerenes. DFT calculations reveal the contribution of electrostatic effects originating from face-to-face arene-fullerene interactions dominate C70 selectivity and elucidate the substituent effect on fullerene encapsulation. The disturbance from the differential interactions between fullerene and surrounding chiral cages on the intrinsic highly symmetric electronic structure of fullerene could be the primary reason accounting for the induced chirality of fullerene.

Chiral zinc oxide functionalized quartz crystal microbalance sensor for enantioselective recognition of amino acids

Chiral transition metal oxides with tunable structures and multiple physicochemical features have been increasingly applied for chiral sensing and detection. In this work, chiral zinc oxide (ZnO) was first applied as selector to construct quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensor for enantioselective recognition of amino acids. The chiral ZnO was prepared by a methionine-induced self-assembly strategy and its high topological chirality was confirmed by several techniques such as circular dichroism spectrum. The chiral discrimination factors were calculated by frequency shifts in response to aspartic acid, phenylalanine, lysine and arginine on L-ZnO surface, achieving 1.89 ± 0.04, 1.76 ± 0.11, 1.66 ± 0.07 and 1.54 ± 0.09, respectively. Notably, L-enantiomers preferred stronger absorptions on L-ZnO surface as compared to D-forms. It was further found that this sensor was appropriate for quantitative analysis and enantiomer excess analysis and adsorption kinetics study. Furthermore, molecular docking revealed the recognition mechanism, where chiral distinction was caused by the different steric interactions between enantiomers and chiral ZnO. This method enjoyed merits of high enantioselectivity, simple preparation and low cost, offering newly chiral sensing method for other molecules.

Targeted Synthesis of Isomeric Naphthalene-Based 2D Kagome Covalent Organic Frameworks

Targeted synthesis of kagome (kgm) topologic 2D covalent organic frameworks remains challenging, presumably due to the severe dependence on building units and synthetic conditions. Herein, two isomeric "two-in-one" monomers with different lengths of substituted arms based on naphthalene core (p-Naph and m-Naph) are elaborately designed and utilized for the defined synthesis of isomeric kgm Naph-COFs. The two isomeric frameworks exhibit splendid crystallinity and showcase the same chemical composition and topologic structure with, however, different pore channels. Interestingly, C₆₀ is able to uniformly be encapsulated into the triangle channels of m-Naph-COF via in situ incorporation method, while not the isomeric p-Naph-COF, likely due to the different pore structures of the two isomeric COFs. The resulting stable C₆₀ @m-Naph-COF composite exhibits much higher photoconductivity than the m-Naph-COF owing to charge transfer between the conjugated skeletons and C₆₀ guests.

Near-Infrared-Absorbing Chiral Open [60]Fullerenes

Though [60]fullerene is an achiral molecular nanocarbon with I_h symmetry, it could attain an inherent chirality depending upon a functionalization pattern. The conventional chiral induction of C₆₀ relies mainly upon a multiple addition affording a mixture of achiral and chiral isomers while their chiral function would be largely offset by the existence of pseudo-mirror plane(s). These are major obstacles to proceed further study on fullerene chirality and yet leave its understanding elusive. Herein, we showcase a carbene-mediated synthesis of C₁ -symmetric chiral open [60]fullerenes showing an intense far-red to near-infrared absorption. The large dissymmetry factor of |g_abs |=0.12 was achieved at λ=820 nm for circular dichroism in benzonitrile. This is, in general, unachievable by other small chiral organic molecules, demonstrating the potential usage of open [60]fullerenes as novel types of chiral chromophores.

Tetrazine Linkers as Plug-and-Play Tags for General Metal-Organic Framework Functionalization and C60 Conjugation

The value of covalent post-synthetic modification in expanding the chemistry and pore versatility of reticular solids is well documented. Here we use mesoporous crystals of the metal-organic framework (MOF) UiO-68-TZDC to demonstrate the value of tetrazine connectors for all-purpose inverse electron-demand Diels-Alder ligation chemistry. Our results suggest a positive effect of tetrazine reticulation over its reactivity for quantitative one-step functionalization with a broad scope of alkene or alkyne dienophiles into pyridazine and dihydropyridazine frameworks. This permits generating multiple pore environments with diverse chemical functionalities and the expected accessible porosities, that is also extended to the synthesis of crystalline fulleretic materials by covalent conjugation of fullerene molecules.

Chiral Open-[60]Fullerene Ligands with Giant Dissymmetry Factors

The optical resolution of open-[60]fullerenes has been limited to only one example since 1998, while the recent advances revealed the excellence of fullerenes as revisited chiral functional materials. Different from conventional chiral induction on [60]fullerene by a multiple-functionalization, a random disruption of the spherical π-conjugation is avoidable for open-[60]fullerenes. Moreover, the macrocyclic orifices enable a metal coordination which endows modulated electronic structures on chiral chromophores. Herein, we showcase Li⁺-coordination behavior and optical resolution of three chiral open-[60]fullerene ligands, showing a giant dissymmetry factor up to 0.20 owing to a congenital topology of the spherical π-conjugation.

Nanoconfined synthesis of conjugated ladder polymers

This review highlights recent advances in controlled synthesis of conjugated ladder polymers using templates.