Kinetic Control of Complexity in Multiple Dynamic Libraries

Multiple dynamic libraries of compounds are generated when more than one reversible reaction comes into play. Commonly, two or more orthogonal reversible reactions are used, leading to non-communicating dynamic libraries which share no building blocks. Only a few examples of communicating libraries have been reported, and in all those cases, building blocks are reversibly exchanged from one library to the other, constituting an antiparallel dynamic covalent system. Herein we report that communication between two different dynamic libraries through an irreversible process is also possible. Indeed, alkyl amines cancel the dynamic regime on the nucleophilic substitution of tetrazines, generating kinetically inert compounds. Interestingly, such amine can be part of another dynamic library, an imine-amine exchange. Thus, both libraries are interconnected with each other by an irreversible process which leads to kinetically inert structures that contain parts from both libraries, causing a collapse of the complexity. Additionally, a latent irreversible intercommunication could be developed. In such a way, a stable molecular system with specific host-guest and fluorescence properties, could be irreversibly transformed when the right stimulus was applied, triggering the cancellation of the original supramolecular and luminescent properties and the emergence of new ones.