A Matter of Fidelity: Self-Sorting Behavior of Di-Gold Metallotweezers

Cation-induced high selective self-sorting is observed for reactions involving a series of di-gold metallotweezers. The variation of the nature of the arms of the tweezers (benzo-imidazolylidene or pyrene-imidazolylidene), or the rigid bis-alkynyl linker (anthracenyl-bis-alkynyl or xanthenyl-bis-alkynyl), induces different type of self-sorting events upon addition of a metal cation (Cu⁺ , Tl⁺ , or Ag⁺ ). Combining two tweezers with the same arms and different linkers produces narcissistic self-sorting. The combination of tweezers with the same linker and different ligands at the arms produces social self-sorting.