A Catenane Assembled through a Single Charge-Assisted Halogen Bond

摘要

Interlocked molecules have captured chemists' imagination owing to their nontrivial topology and the promise of their potential nanotechnological uses as molecular machines and in chemical sensor applications. The synthesis of such sophisticated architectures is a challenge, and as a consequence this has necessitated the implementation of imaginative cation, anion, and neutral templation methodologies, which use a combination of complementary Lewis acid-base, electrostatic, and hydrogen-bonding interactions for component assembly. Halogen bonding (XB) is the attractive highly directional, noncovalent interaction between an electron-deficient halogen atom and a Lewis base. The scope of XB in solid-state crystal engineering has been intensively explored for a number of years, however, in spite of the complementary analogy to ubiquitous hydrogen bonding, it is only in recent times that investigations into the application of solution-phase XB interactions to molecular recognition processes, self-assembly, and catalysis have resulted in this field developing rapidly. Indeed, in conjunction with anion templation, we have used XB to assemble interpenetrated and interlocked molecular frameworks.