Creating Coordination‐Based Cavities in a Multiresponsive Supramolecular Gel |
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| Authors: | Shi‐Chao Wei Dr Mei Pan Yuan‐Zhong Fan Haoliang Liu Prof Jianyong Zhang Prof Cheng‐Yong Su |
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| Affiliation: | 1. MOE Laboratory of Bioinorganic and Synthetic Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Lehn Institute of Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Sun Yat‐Sen University, Guangzhou 510275 (China);2. State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032 (China) |
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| Abstract: | Creating cavities in varying levels, from molecular containers to macroscopic materials of porosity, have long been motivated for biomimetic or practical applications. Herein, we report an assembly approach to multiresponsive supramolecular gels by integrating photochromic metal–organic cages as predefined building units into the supramolecular gel skeleton, providing a new approach to create cavities in gels. Formation of discrete O‐Pd2L4 cages is driven by coordination between Pd2+ and a photochromic dithienylethene bispyridine ligand (O‐PyFDTE). In the presence of suitable solvents (DMSO or MeCN/DMSO), the O‐Pd2L4 cage molecules aggregate to form nanoparticles, which are further interconnected through supramolecular interactions to form a three‐dimensional (3D) gel matrix to trap a large amount of solvent molecules. Light‐induced phase and structural transformations readily occur owing to the reversible photochromic open‐ring/closed‐ring isomeric conversion of the cage units upon UV/visible light radiation. Furthermore, such Pd2L4 cage‐based gels show multiple reversible gel–solution transitions when thermal‐, photo‐, or mechanical stimuli are applied. Such supramolecular gels consisting of porous molecules may be developed as a new type of porous materials with different features from porous solids. |
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| Keywords: | coordination cages coordination modes palladium photochromism supramolecular gels |
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