Electronic and Steric Tuning of an Atropisomeric Disulfoxide Ligand Motif and Its Use in the Rh(I)-Catalyzed Addition Reactions of Boronic Acids to a Wide Range of Acceptors.

A novel chiral disulfoxide ligand pair bearing fluorine atoms at the 6 and 6' position of its atropisomeric backbone, ( M, S, S)- and ( P, S, S)- p-Tol-6F-BIPHESO, was synthesized. Complexation to a rhodium(I) precursor gave rise to µ-Cl- and µ-OH-bridged rhodium dimer complexes incorporating the new ( M, S, S)- p-Tol-6F-BIPHESO ligand, while its sibling ( P, S, S)- p-Tol-6F-BIPHESO was not complexed efficiently to the rhodium precursor. The performance of this disulfoxide ligand [( M, S, S)- p-Tol-6F-BIPHESO] in catalysis was tested in both 1,4- and 1,2-addition reactions of arylboronic acids. We show that addition to both cyclic and acyclic enones as well as N-tosylarylimines proceeds with high yields and high enantioselectivities to give the corresponding products. The synthesis of enantiomerically pure p-Tol-6F-BIPHESO is straightforward and inexpensive which, together with the high catalytic performance and wide substrate scope for these addition reactions, makes it a very attractive alternative to more classical chiral ligand entities.

Smart stimuli-responsive spherical nanostructures constructed from supramolecular metallodendrimers via hierarchical self-assembly.

In this article, we present the design and construction of a series of supramolecular poly(benzyl ether) metallodendrimers featuring a well-defined hexagonal metallacycle at their cores via coordination-driven self-assembly. It was found that the second generation metallodendrimer 3c was able to hierarchically self-assemble into the regular vesicle-like structures. These nanoscale vesicles were monodisperse in shape and relatively monodisperse in size as detected in SEM, TEM, AFM, and DLS experiments. Notably, this kind of hierarchically formed vesicle-like nanostructure adopted a discrete metallacycle as the main skeleton, which is obviously different from many previous reports of nanoscale spherical architectures. Moreover, such supramolecular vesicle-like structures could encapsulate some fluorescent molecules, like BODIPY and SRB, etc. By taking advantage of the dynamic nature of metal-ligand bonds, the disassembly and reassembly of the hexagonal cavity core could be reversibly controlled by the addition and removal of bromide ions, resulting in the transition from the vesicles to micelles. Thus, the controlled release of fluorescence dye was successfully realized by the halide-induced vesicles-micelles transition. These findings not only enrich the library of supramolecular metallodenrimers but also provide a new avenue to the construction of novel "smart" nanomaterials, which have potential application in functional molecules delivery and release.

Stimuli-responsive supramolecular gels through hierarchical self-assembly of discrete rhomboidal metallacycles.

A new class of supramolecular organometallic gels with a discrete rhomboidal metallacycle as the main skeleton was fabricated through hierarchical self-assembly (see figure). More importantly, by taking advantage of the dynamic nature of metal-ligand bonds, the stimuli-responsive gel-sol transition of the obtained gels was realized by disassembly and reassembly of the rhomboidal scaffold as controlled by bromide anions.

Synthesis of triangular metallodendrimers via coordination-driven self-assembly.

A new family of 60° dendritic di-Pt(II) acceptor tectons have been successfully designed and synthesized, from which a series of novel "three-component" triangular metallodendrimers were prepared via [3 + 3] coordination-driven self-assembly. The structures of newly designed triangular metallodendrimers are characterized by multinuclear NMR ((1)H and (31)P), (1)H DOSY NMR, mass spectrometry (CSI-TOF-MS), and elemental analysis. The shape and size of all supramolecular dendritic triangles were investigated with PM6 semiempirical molecular orbital methods.