Controlling transport of ion pairs by light-responsive heteroditopic azobenzene carrier

Precise and stimuli-controllable transport of charged and neutral guests is a hallmark of cellular processes. Although ion transport has been mimicked with artificial carriers, no such systems are known for electrically neutral ion pairs. We engineered an artificial carrier (1) demonstrating a regulated binding and transport of ion pairs, depending on the photo-controlled translocation of the cation and anion binding domains. The NMR and electrochemical experiments supported by the DFT calculations indicate that UVA-generated V-shaped cis-1, featuring ion binding domains close to each other, shows an unprecedented 74-fold higher extraction rate of ion pairs relative to the native trans-1.