Just a moment ago in a river that you wish was far, far away, there is an overabundance of nitrate fertilizer from pastoral run-off that is damaging the aquatic flora and fauna. This story repeats in many areas of chemistry and biology where anions play crucial roles. For these reasons, we and other supramolecular chemists are forming an alliance to help combat some of these effects by creating electropositive binding pockets in which to capture negatively charged ions. We will present the latest efforts in this crusade where a powerful star-shaped molecule is created that displays unrivalled abilities to bind anions. The noncovalent forces are strong in this one, yet they originate from unexpectedly humble beginnings � forged through a Knoevenagel condensation, a CH group is activated and, when trained inside a carefully constructed pentagon, can display competent hydrogen bonds. The results of these and other studies will be told.

Cyano star wars episode I: A star is born

247th National Meeting (2014)

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