Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.142, No.12, 5504-5508, 2020
A Double-Walled Knotted Cage for Guest-Adaptive Molecular Recognition
We synthesized a double-walled knotted cage from a flexible tripodal ligand. The characteristic double-walled structure provided a unique adaptive behavior of the cavity upon inclusion of organic molecules, which was evidenced by NMR and X-ray measurements. The semiflexible host framework, restricted by the knotted topology, enabled kinetic molecular recognition revealing the sequential binding of two different guests from their mixture.