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Updated: Jun 16, 2025

Synthesis of a Water-soluble Metal–Organic Complex Array
Published on: October 8, 2016
Heterometallic-Organic Cages with Customized Cavities: Constructed by Bottom-Up Step-Wise Coordination-Driven
Kaixiu Li1, Mingliang Liu1, Zhengguang Li1
1Department of Organic and Polymer Chemistry, Hunan Key Laboratory of Micro & Nano Materials Interface Science, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410083, China.
Abstract:
Accurately synthesizing coordination-driven metal-organic cages with customized shape and cavity remains a great challenge for chemists. In this work, a bottom-up step-wise coordination-driven self-assembly approach was put forward. Employing this strategy, three terpyridyl heterometallic-organic truncated tetrahedral cages with different sizes and cavity were precisely synthesized. Firstly, the coordination of tripodal organic ligands with Ru2+ afforded dendritic metal-organic ligands L1-L3. Then the Ru building blocks complexed with Fe2+ and shrunk to form the desired heterometallic-organic cages (C1-C3). These discrete heterometallic-organic supramolecular cages were fully characterized and displayed the large and open cavities varied from 7205 Å3 to 9384 Å3. Notably, these cages could not be directly constructed by single-step assembly process using initial organic ligands or dimeric metal-organic ligands, indicative of the irreplaceability of a bottom-up step-wise assembly strategy for size-customized architectures. This work paves a new way for precisely constructing metal-organic cages with well-defined cavities.
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