Abstract
The design of porous materials for the recognition of multiple hydrocarbons is highly desirable for the energy-efficient separation and recognition of chemical feedstock. Here, we report three new iso-structural porous discrete metal-organic cages of formula {[Pd 3 (N i Pr) 3 PO] 4 (R-AN) 6 } (R-AN = Anilate linkers) for the selective recognition of substituted aromatic hydrocarbons. The tetrahedral cages 1 , 2 and 3 containing anilate, chloranilate and bromanilate linkers exhibited selective encapsulation of mesitylene, o - xylene and p - xylene, respectively, over other analogous aromatic hydrocarbons. These selective encapsulations were driven by the variations in the portal diameters present at each of these cages and their interactions with the hydrocarbon guests. These observations are supported by mass-spectrometry, NMR studies and theoretical binding energy calculations.
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