Metal-Organic Cages with Missing Linker Defects.

Abstract

We present here the controlled synthesis of defective coordination cages by employing steric hindrance of organic linkers to manipulate coordination modes of the assembled metal ions. Three chiral 1,1'-bi-2-naphthol (BINOL) derived bis-tridentate ligands L1 -L3 with pyridine-2,6-dicarboxamides (pcam) chelating moieties are therefore designed and synthesized, among which L3 has a smaller steric hindrance on the coordinating sites relative to the other two linkers. Complexes of L1 and L2 with lanthanides afford the irregular Ln8 (L1 )10 hexahedra with two missing edges and Ln4 (L2 )5 tetrahedra with one missing edge, respectively, both of which contain a 1:1 mixture of Ln(pcam)2 and Ln(pcam)3 . In contrast, complex of L3 produces the regular twisted Ln6 (L3 )9 trigonal prisms without missing edges that contain only Ln(pcam)3 vertices. The defective cage has more freedom to adjust its structural conformation, affording adaptable cavity to accommodate a range of guest molecules with sizes comparable or much larger than the cavity portals.