Coordination-driven self-assembly of metal ions and organic ligands has been extensively utilised over the past few decades to access a variety of cage assemblies. Many of the reported examples are highly symmetrical architectures which comprises of one type of organic ligand that carries a single functionality. [1] However, low-symmetry self-assembled coordination cages are in recent trend due to the possible incorporation of multiple functionalities in a single cage system which will enhance their applicability in the field of catalysis, drug delivery etc. [1]
Construction of low-symmetry coordination cages possessing multiple number of 3D-cavities is a challenging task.[2] Most of the Pd(II)-based low-symmetry metal-organic cages reported so far consists of a single 3D-cavity. Multi-cavity low symmetry metal- organic cages can be achieved in two different ways (i) using an unsymmetrical ligand (ii) by the mixing of two or more symmetrical/unsymmetrical ligand systems.[2] Both of these strategies are quite challenging as it can leads to a mixture of products. The objective of our work is to synthesize various unsymmetrical designer ligands and construct corresponding Pd(II)-based multi-cavity low-symmetry metal-organic cages. Selective encapsulation of guest molecules will be tried using the cages.
References:
1. Lewis, J. E. M. Chem. Commun., 2022, 58, 13873-13886
2. Sharma, S.; Sarkar, M.; Chand, D. K. Chem. Commun., 2023, 59, 535-554