Deliberate design of ligand architecture yields dramatic enhancement of metal ion affinity.

Evaluation of the malonamide substructure with respect to binding site preorganization and complementarity for lanthanide metal ions suggests a new ligand architecture specifically designed to enhance lanthanide ion affinity. Consideration of conformational reorganization, restricted bond rotation, and donor group orientation suggests that typical malonamide structures, for example, N,N,N'N'-tetrahexylpropane-1,3-diamide (1), N,N'-dibutyl-N,N'-dimethyl-2-tetradecylpropane-1,3-diamide (2), or N,N,N'N'-tetramethylpropane-1,3-diamide (6), are poorly organized for metal ion complexation. Molecular mechanics analyses show that the unfavorable enthalpic and entropic terms are eliminated by the use of the novel bicyclic architecture found in 3,9-diaza-3,9-dimethylbicyclo[4.