Self-assembly of nanoscale cuboctahedra by coordination chemistry.
Self-assembled polyhedral structures are common in biology. The coats of many viruses, for example, have a structure based on icosahedral symmetry. The preparation of synthetic polyhedral molecular assemblies represents a challenging problem, but supramolecular chemistry has now advanced to the point where the task may be addressed. Macromolecular and supramolecular entities of predefined geometric shape and with well-defined internal environments are potentially important for inclusion phenomena, molecular recognition and catalysis. Here we report the use of self-assembly of molecular units driven by coordination to transition-metal ions to prepare a cuboctahedron from 20 tridentate and bidentate subunits in a single step. The cuboctahedron is an archimedean semiregular polyhedron that combines square and triangular faces. Our self-assembled polyhedral capsules, characterized by NMR and electrospray mass spectrometry, are around 5 nanometres in diameter.
Olenyuk
B
B
Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112, USA.
Whiteford
J A
JA
Fechtenkötter
A
A
Stang
P J
PJ
D001555:Benzene Derivatives / Q000737:chemistry*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D008958:Models, Molecular; D015394:Molecular Structure
D001555:Benzene Derivatives