A pseudo-cubic metal-organic cage with conformationally switchable faces for dynamically adaptive guest encapsulation.

The creation of hosts capable of accommodating different guest molecules may enable these hosts to play useful roles in chemical purifications, among other applications. Metal-organic cages are excellent hosts for various guests, but they generally incorporate rigid structural units that hinder dynamic adaptation to specific guests. Here we report a conformationally adaptable pseudo-cubic cage that can dynamically increase its cavity volume to fit guests with differing sizes.

Double-Bridging Increases the Stability of Zinc(II) Metal-Organic Cages.

A key feature of coordination cages is the dynamic nature of their coordinative bonds, which facilitates the synthesis of complex polyhedral structures and their post-assembly modification. However, this dynamic nature can limit cage stability. Increasing cage robustness is important for real-world use cases.

Metal Coordination Effects on the Photophysics of Dipyrrinato Photosensitizers.

Within this work, we review the metal coordination effect on the photophysics of metal dipyrrinato complexes. Dipyrrinato complexes are promising candidates in the search for alternative transition metal photosensitizers for application in photodynamic therapy (PDT). These complexes can be activated by irradiation with light of a specific wavelength, after which, cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated.

Absolute configuration and host-guest binding of chiral porphyrin-cages by a combined chiroptical and theoretical approach.

Porphyrin cage-compounds are used as biomimetic models and substrate-selective catalysts in supramolecular chemistry. In this work we present the resolution of planar-chiral porphyrin cages and the determination of their absolute configuration by vibrational circular dichroism in combination with density functional theory calculations. The chiral porphyrin-cages form complexes with achiral and chiral viologen-guests and upon binding one of the axial enantiomorphs of the guest is bound selectively, as is indicated by induced-electronic-dichroism-spectra in combination with calculations.