Quantifying Intrinsic Ion-Driven Conformational Changes in Diphenylacetylene Supramolecular Switches with Cryogenic Ion Vibrational Spectroscopy

Ion and molecular recognition using aryl-ethynyl scaffolding

The aryl-ethynyl linkage has been extensively employed in the construction of hosts for a variety of guests. Uses range from ion detection (e.g., of metal cations in the environment or industrial waste and of anions prevalent in nature), to molecular mimics for biological systems, and to applications targeting future safety issues (such as CO2 capture and indicators for the manufacture of chemical weapons). This Focus Review examines the utilization of the aryl-ethynyl linkage in engineering host molecules for a variety of different guests, and how the alkyne unit plays an integral part as both a rigid scaffolding section in host geometry design as well as a linker to allow conjugative communication between discrete π-electron systems.

Guest dependent dielectric properties of nickel(ii)-based supramolecular networks

Nickel-based supramolecular compounds exhibit interesting guest dependent dielectric behaviour and high thermal stability. This study serves as a motivation to expand our research to create both high and low-κmaterials with a judicious selection of guest molecules.

A Lewis acid-mediated conformational switch

An isonicotinamide-substituted diphenylacetylene undergoes conformational switching upon recognition of Lewis acids.