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Updated: Nov 27, 2025

Synthesis of a Water-soluble Metal–Organic Complex Array
Published on: October 8, 2016
Coordination-Assembled Molecular Cages with Metal Cluster Nodes
Zheng-Zhong Zhu1, Chong-Bin Tian1, Qing-Fu Sun1
1State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, 350002, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Molecular cages have attracted great attention because of their fascinating topological structures and well-defined functional cavities. These discrete cages were usually fabricated by coordination assembly approach, a process employing directional metal-ligand coordination bonds due to the nature of the divinable coordination geometry and the required lability to encode dynamic equilibrium/error-correction. Compared to these coordination molecular cages with mononulcear metal-nodes, an increasing number of molecular cages featuring dinuclear and then polynuclear metal-cluster nodes have been synthesized. These metal-cluster-based coordination cages (MCCCs) combine the merits of both metal clusters and the cage structure, and exhibit excellent performances in catalysis, separation, host-guest chemistry and so on. In this review, we highlight the syntheses of MCCCs and their potential functions that is donated by the metal-cluster nodes.
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