Confinement of metal complexes within porous hosts: development of functional materials for gas binding and catalysis

The development of porous functional materials, using template copolymerization, that function in gas binding/release and catalysis is described. Using substitutionally inert metal complexes as templates, materials were prepared with immobilized sites that retained structural properties of the template; this allows for tunable functional properties. Chemical modification of the immobilized sites led to coordinatively unsaturated metal centers that reversibly bind either O2 or NO. Materials have also been prepared that exhibit varying degrees of catalytic activity in the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of epoxides as a function of the template concentration used to prepare the polymers.