Running Rings Around Rings
Running Rings around Rings
A new class of molecular hosts was developed by the team of Dr. Oliver Dumele. Strained aromatic rings of pyrene were designed to create a confined binding space for molecular macrocycles. The bound macrocycles of crown ethers can further complex alkaline cations and the outer ring serves as secondary coordination sphere. Niklas Grabicki, who led the experimental work, intends to use these supramolecular systems for future sensors and to gain fundamental understanding of highly strain aromatic rings. The structural elucidation was done in collaborative work with the Helmholtz-Zentrum at Berlin’s synchrotron BESSY-II.
Stuart Cantrill, editor in chief of Nature Chemistry, commented on the work as the essential link between Pederson’s Nobel Prize (1987) on cationic crwon ethers and the modern class of cycloparaphenylenes (para-connected benzene rings bent into a cyclic structure) as molecular hosts.
The work was published in Angewandte Chemie and is open-access thanks to the Project „DEAL“.
Link Nature Chemistry: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-021-00727-w.pdf
Link Angewandte Chemie (English): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/anie.202102809
Link Angewandte Chemie (German): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ange.202102809
Dr. Oliver Dumele is a research group leader at the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry and functional Materials at HU Berlin.
Twitter: @DumeleLab
Website: dumelelab.com