Lanthanide cryptates involving both the trivalent and divalent state have been studied for their luminescence and magnetic properties that have application in fluoroimmunoassays, catalysis, NMR spectroscopy and magnetic resonance imaging. Furthermore, the divalent oxidation state of lanthanides is stabilized by tuning of the cryptand structure. This tuning of stability demonstrates the powerful influence that small modifications to ligand structure have on cryptate properties. We hypothesized that a larger set of cryptates with more diverse structural variations could lead to an even wider range of properties. Consequently, we have synthesized a library of cryptands by systematically changing the donor atoms (O, S, N) and cavity sizes. To promote the rapid synthesis of a library of cryptands, we used solid-phase and microwave-assisted techniques. Here, we report the synthesis of our cryptand library and the exploration of properties relevant to the donor strength and oxidative stabilization of the divalent europium cryptates. We expect that our method of cryptand synthesis using solid-phase and microwave-assisted techniques will enable further exciting studies of lanthanide cryptates.

Synthesis of a library of divalent europium cryptates

251st National Meeting (2016)

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