Porous coordination cages have been investigated for a number of applications, including gas storage, gas separations, and drug delivery. Zirconium-based coordination cages have gained considerable recent attention as a result of their structural tunability and amenability to post-synthetic modification. These cages can appear as tetrahedral (4-vertex) phases, based on both di- and tri-topic ligands, or a cigar (2-vertex) phase. Previously reported cages have been shown to adopt one structure or the other, depending on the angle between carboxylate groups of bridging ligands. However, careful inspection of solution-based characterization data clearly indicates the presence of both phases under nearly all conditions. With functionalization and extension of dicarboxylate ligands it is possible to synthesize materials with a specific phase in mind. Furthermore, some of the extended, mixed-phase materials have been isolated and studied with single crystal x-ray diffraction in both their tetrahedral and cigar phases; their powder x-ray diffraction results then confirming a mixture of the two materials. Both phases of the materials remain porous after activation with the tetrahedral materials being more porous than their cigar counterparts. This presentation will outline advances made in this area and present specific design criteria for phase discrimination in this promising class of porous molecular materials.

Ligand-based phase control in porous zirconium coordination cages

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.