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Directed Phase Transfer of an Fe$^{II}$$_{4}$L$_{4}$ Cage and Encapsulated Cargo

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Grommet, AB 
Nitschke, JR 

Abstract

Supramolecular capsules can now be prepared with a wide range of volumes and geometries. Consequently, many of these capsules encapsulate guests selectively by size and shape, an important design feature for separations. To successfully address practical separations problems, however, a guest cannot simply be isolated from its environment; the molecular cargo must be removed to a separate physical space. Here we demonstrate that an FeII4L4 coordination cage 1 can transport a cargo spontaneously and quantitatively from water across a phase boundary and into an ionic liquid layer. This process is triggered by an anion exchange from 1[SO4] to 1[BF4]. Upon undergoing a second anion exchange, from 1[BF4] to 1[SO4], the cage, together with its encapsulated guest, can then be manipulated back into a water layer. Furthermore, we demonstrate the selective phase transfer of cationic cages to separate a mixture of two cages and their respective cargoes. We envisage that supramolecular technologies based upon these concepts could ultimately be employed to carry out separations of industrially relevant compounds.

Description

Keywords

0303 Macromolecular and Materials Chemistry

Journal Title

Journal of the American Chemical Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0002-7863
1520-5126

Volume Title

139

Publisher

American Chemical Society
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K039520/1)
European Research Council (259352)
European Research Council (695009)
This work was supported by the European Research Council (695009). A.B.G. also acknowledges the Cambridge Trusts for Ph.D. funding.