Supramolecular Chemistry of Windmill-like Al Clusters: Adjustable Guests and Hydrogen-Bonding Networks for Enhanced Optical Limiting.

The interest in cluster chemistry lies not only in the development of new types of geometric structures but also in the higher-level connectivity and assembly of clusters at the supramolecular level. Here, we report a novel windmill-like Al cluster and consider this geometrically unique cluster as an anionic node assembled together with different cationic guests such as imidazolium and guanidinium. These guests with different hydrogen-bond angles can help to obtain a series of diverse hydrogen-bonding networks and then manipulate the stacking mode of hosts and guests.

Water-stable porous Al Archimedean solids for removal of trace iodine.

In this paper, we report a unique type of core-shell crystalline material that combines an inorganic zeolitic cage structure with a macrocyclic host arrangement and that can remove trace levels of iodine from water effectively. These unique assemblies are made up of an inorganic Archimedean truncatedhexahedron (tcu) polyhedron in the kernel which possesses six calixarene-like shell cavities. The cages have good adaptability to guests and can be assembled into a series of supramolecular structures in the crystalline state with different lattice pore shapes.