For the sake of its great importance in nuclear fuel cycle and environmental safety, actinide chemistry has gained increased attentions from chemists, geologists and materials specialists. More sophisticated knowledge about actinide elements may provide much valuable information and help to achieve improvements in waste treatment and contamination remediation. On the other hand, metal-organic materials with dynamic components, such as mechanically-interlocked rotaxane molecules (MIMs), integrate the attractive feature of flexibility into rigid frameworks as well as broad functionalities. Among plenty of rotaxane-based coordination polymers, transition metal ions and lanthanide ions have been intensively studied. However, polyrotaxanes containing actinide cations, such as uranyl or thorium cations, have been never reported. Hence, we are currently pursuing the preparation of actinide polyrotaxanes from uranyl cation and pseudorotaxanes ligands containing cucurbituril. These efforts have finally produce a series of uranyl polyrotaxanes with a rich library of structures from one dimension to three dimensions. Moreover, we found that the diversity of topologic structures is in close relationship with the direction role of different uranyl secondary building units.

Uranyl polyrotaxanes: From hydrothermal synthesis to structural diversity

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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