Planet-satellite cage hybrids: covalent organic cages encircling metal organic cage

Giant oligomeric porous cage-based molecules

Most reported porous materials are either extended networks or monomeric discrete cavities; indeed, porous structures of intermediate size have scarcely been explored. Herein, we present the stepwise linkage of discrete porous metal-organic cages or polyhedra (MOPs) into oligomeric structures with a finite number of MOP units. The synthesis of these new oligomeric porous molecules entails the preparation of 1-connected (1-c) MOPs with only one available azide reactive site on their surface. The azide-terminated 1-c MOP is linked through copper(i)-catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition click chemistry with additional alkyne-terminated 1-c MOPs, 4-c clusters, or 24-c MOPs to yield three classes of giant oligomeric molecules: dimeric, tetrameric, or satellite-like, respectively. Importantly, all the giant molecules that we synthesised are soluble in water and permanently porous in the solid state.

Chiral metal-organic cages decorated with binaphthalene moieties

The construction of chiral nanoobjects with atomically precise nanostructures has attracted much more attention in the past decades. However, this field is still in its early stages. We designed and synthesized a series of chiral ligands containing the binaphthalene moiety and isophthalate module. Then, four chiral metal-organic cages (MOCs) were obtained through the coordination between isophthalate modules and copper ions. These chiral MOCs exhibit discrete, uniform and stable structures, good solubility and photoluminescence behaviors.

Virus-like Cage Hybrid: Covalent Organic Cages Attached to Metal Organic Cage

A well-defined virus-like cage hybrid (VCH) with 24 covalent organic cages (COCs) attached to one metal organic cage (MOC) is presented here. The quantitative assembly of VCH was completed through coordination between soluble anisotropic COC bearing one bipyridine moiety and Pd(II) ions. The obtained VCH exhibited discrete, uniform and stable structures with good solubility and was well characterized by NMR, FT-IR, TEM, AFM, DLS, TGA, and so on. This designable cage hybrid promotes a new strategy to expand the structural and functional complexities of porous molecular cages.