Investigating the Imidazolium-Anion Interaction through the Anion-Templated Construction of Interpenetrated and Interlocked Assemblies

Abstract

The interaction between imidazolium cations and coordinating anions is investigated through the anion-templated assembly of interpenetrated and interlocked structures. The orientation of the imidazolium motif with respect to anion binding, and hence the hydrogen bond donor arrangement, was varied in acyclic receptors, interpenetrated assemblies, and the first mono-imidazolium interlocked systems. Their anion recognition properties and co-conformations were studied by solution-phase 1H NMR investigations, solid-state structures, molecular dynamics simulations, and density functional theory calculations. Our findings suggest that the imidazolium-anion binding interaction is dominated by electrostatics with hydrogen-bonding contributions having weak orientational dependence.