The assembly of 2- and 3-D structures from molecular components or nano-building blocks (NBs) is of great current interest. Although there are numerous literature examplesof molecules possessing high degrees of 2-D symmetry; a much smaller number of molecular classes possessing structure and functionality with high 3-D symmetry are known. We describe here the synthesis and characterization of the mono-, di- and tri-brominated derivatives of octaphenylsilsesquioxane (OPS). We report here the synthesis of crystalline octa o-bromophenylsilsesquioxane via un-catalyzed bromination at 60� C. The introduction of iron catalysts provides access to crystalline hexadeca- and disordered tetraicosa-brominated OPS derivatives, [2,5-Br2PhSiO1.5] and [Br3PhSiO1.5]8 respectively.  The latter two compounds have extraordinarily high densities of bromine for single molecules. These compounds were characterized using NMR, FTIR, TGA and single crystal X-Ray diffraction.

Nanobuilding blocks via
bromination of polyhedral phenylsilsesquioxanes

240th National Meeting (2010)

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Nanobuilding blocks via bromination of polyhedral phenylsilsesquioxanes