Abstract
Organic cages are a robust class of molecular hosts with a myriad of applications in materials science.
Despite this, there has been a paucity of explorations into the modification of their properties via external
functionalization. In this work, [n]rotaxanes featuring unoccupied organic cages as stopper components and a small 2,2’-bipyridine macrocycle were constructed using the active metal template approach. By exploiting a scrambling
methodology, it was possible to synthesise cages with a defined number of interlocked components (n = 2-4). The
gas uptake, solubility and thermal properties of the interlocked systems were compared against those of their
constituent, non-interlocked components. In this manner, we were able to demonstrate the potential of exploiting
the mechanical bond for modulating the physiochemical properties of these molecular materials.
Supplementary materials
Title
Supporting Information
Description
Includes all experimental details and protocol, and characterisation data.
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Title
Rotaxane Models
Description
Computational models of the cage[n]rotaxanes: CR1, CR2, CR3
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