Designable Assembly of Aluminum Molecular Rings for Sequential Confinement of Iodine Molecules

Although numerous adsorbent materials have been reported for the capture of radioactive iodine, there is still demand for new absorbents that are economically viable and can be prepared by reliable synthetic protocols. Herein, we report a coordination-driven self-assembly strategy towards adsorbents for the sequential confinement of iodine molecules. These adsorbents are versatile heterometallic frameworks constructed from aluminum molecular rings of varying size, flexible copper ions, and conjugated carboxylate ligands. Additionally, these materials can quickly remove iodine from cyclohexane solutions with a high removal rate (98.8 %) and considerable loading capacity (555.06 mg g^-1 ). These heterometallic frameworks provided distinct pore sizes and binding sites for iodine molecules, and the sequential confinement of iodine molecules was supported by crystallographic data. This work not only sets up a bridge between molecular rings and infinite porous networks but also reveals molecular details for the underlying host-guest binding interactions at crystallographic resolution.