Sahan R. Salpage

Functional Materials from Self-Assembled Bis-urea Macrocycles

CONSPECTUS: This Account highlights the work from our laboratories on bis-urea macrocycles constructed from two C-shaped spacers and two urea groups. These simple molecular units assembled with high fidelity into columnar structures guided by the three-centered urea hydrogen bonding motif and aryl stacking interactions. Individual columns are aligned and closely packed together to afford functional and homogeneous microporous crystals. This approach allows for precise and rational control over the dimensions of the columnar structure simply by changing the small molecular unit. When the macrocyclic unit lacks a cavity, columnar assembly gives strong pillars. Strong pillars with external functional groups such as basic lone pairs can expand like clays to accept guests between the pillars. Macrocycles that contain sizable interior cavities assemble into porous molecular crystals with aligned, well-defined columnar pores that are accessible to gases and guests. Herein, we examine the optimal design of the macrocyclic unit that leads to columnar assembly in high fidelity and probe the feasibility of incorporating a second functional group within the macrocycles. The porous molecular crystals prepared through the self-assembly of bis-urea macrocycles display surface areas similar to zeolites but lower than MOFs. Their simple one-dimensional channels are well-suited for studying binding, investigating transport, diffusion and exchange, and monitoring the effects of encapsulation on reaction mechanism and product distribution. Guests that complement the size, shape, and polarity of the channels can be absorbed into these porous crystals with repeatable stoichiometry to form solid host-guest complexes. Heating or extraction with an organic solvent enables desorption or removal of the guest and subsequent recovery of the solid host. Further, these porous crystals can be used as containers for the selective [2 + 2] cycloadditions of small enones such as 2-cyclohexenone or 3-methyl-cyclopentenone, while larger hosts bind and facilitate the photodimerization of coumarin. When the host framework incorporates benzophenone, a triplet sensitizer, UV-irradiation in the presence of oxygen efficiently generates singlet oxygen. Complexes of this host were employed to influence the selectivity of photooxidations of 2-methyl-2-butene and cumene with singlet oxygen. Small systematic changes in the channel and bound reactants should enable systematic evaluation of the effects of channel dimensions, guest dimensions, and channel-guest interactions on the processes of absorption, diffusion, and reaction of guests within these nanochannels. Such studies could help in the development of new materials for separations, gas storage, and catalysis.

Crystalline Bis-urea Nanochannel Architectures Tailored for Single-File Diffusion Studies.

Urea is a versatile building block that can be modified to self-assemble into a multitude of structures. One-dimensional nanochannels with zigzag architecture and cross-sectional dimensions of only ∼3.7 Å × 4.8 Å are formed by the columnar assembly of phenyl ether bis-urea macrocycles. Nanochannels formed by phenylethynylene bis-urea macrocycles have a round cross-section with a diameter of ∼9.0 Å. This work compares the Xe atom packing and diffusion inside the crystalline channels of these two bis-ureas using hyperpolarized Xe-129 NMR. The elliptical channel structure of the phenyl ether bis-urea macrocycle produces a Xe-129 powder pattern line shape characteristic of an asymmetric chemical shift tensor with shifts extending to well over 300 ppm with respect to the bulk gas, reflecting extreme confinement of the Xe atom. The wider channels formed by phenylethynylene bis-urea, in contrast, present an isotropic dynamically average electronic environment. Completely different diffusion dynamics are revealed in the two bis-ureas using hyperpolarized spin-tracer exchange NMR. Thus, a simple replacement of phenyl ether with phenylethynylene as the rigid linker unit results in a transition from single-file to Fickian diffusion dynamics. Self-assembled bis-urea macrocycles are found to be highly suitable materials for fundamental molecular transport studies on micrometer length scales.

Applications of a Bis-Urea Phenylethynylene Self-Assembled Nanoreactor for [2 + 2] Photodimerizations

Confined environments can be used to alter the selectivity of a reaction by influencing the organization of the reactants, altering the mobility of trapped molecules, facilitating one reaction pathway or selectively stabilizing the products. This manuscript utilizes a series of potentially photoreactive guests to interrogate the utility of the one-dimensional nanochannels of a porous host to absorb and facilitate the reaction of encapsulated guests. The host is a columnar self-assembled phenylethynylene bis-urea macrocycle, which absorbs guests, including coumarin, 6-methyl coumarin, 7-methyl coumarin, 7-methoxy coumarin, acenaphthylene, cis-stilbene, trans-stilbene, and trans-β-methylstyrene to afford crystalline inclusion complexes. We examine the structure of the host:guest complexes using powder X-ray diffraction, which suggests that they are well-ordered highly crystalline materials. Investigations using solid-state cross-polarized magic angle spinning (13)C{(1)H}CP-MAS NMR spectroscopy indicate that the guests are mobile relative to the host. Upon UV-irradiation, we observed selective photodimerization reactions for coumarin, 6-methyl coumarin, 7-methyl coumarin, and acenaphthylene, while the other substrates were unreactive even under prolonged UV-irradiation. Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations suggest that the reactive guests were close paired and preorganized in configurations that facilitate the photodimerization with high selectivity while the unreactive guests did not exhibit similar close pairing. A greater understanding of the factors that control diffusion and reaction in confinement could lead to the development of better catalysts.

Pyridyl-phenylethynylene bis -urea macrocycles: self-assembly and utility as a nanoreactor for the selective photoreaction of isoprene

Porous organic crystalline materials were obtained by the self-assembly of pyridyl-phenylethynylene bis-urea macrocycles (1). In contrast to the typical columnar assembly of other bis-urea macrocycles, 1 assembled into interdigitated layers to afford a host with small 1D channels with a pore diameter of ∼4.5 A. Herein, we discuss the origin between the expected and observed assembly and demonstrate the utility of these activated organic crystals to absorb a guest and maintain crystallinity during the reaction of the encapsulated guest and subsequent product isolation. Isoprene was chosen as a model monomer due to the small channel diameter of 1. The activated crystals were able to absorb isoprene and facilitate a photoinitiated and stereoselective oligomerization to produce trans-1,4-polyisoprene with low dispersity. The products were readily extracted from the crystals and analysis of the microstructure of the oligomer showed 97% trans-1,4 content and a dispersity (Đ) of 1.39. Despite the altered assembly pattern of this bis-urea macrocycle, powder X-ray diffraction studies demonstrated that the crystalline host was remarkably robust and stable throughout the activation, isoprene absorption, photoinduced polymerization, and product recovery processes. Our future investigations are focused on assessing the stability of the isoprene radicals within the host and evaluating the loading and reaction of other monomers.

Pillars of assembled pyridyl bis-urea macrocycles: a robust synthon to organize diiodotetrafluorobenzenes

Columnar assembled pyridyl bis-urea macrocycles 1 provide a strong 1D supramolecular synthon to construct hierarchical assemblies. These 1D pillars contain ditopic symmetrical acceptors in the form of basic oxygen lone pairs. Herein, we probe this synthon with a series of activated halogen bond donors, the regio-isomers of diiodotetrafluorobenzenes, which vary the relative orientation of the halogen bond formers. Irrespective of the initial stoichiometry, each donor only formed one type of co-crystal with 1. In each case, similar strong pillars of assembled 1 were observed that organize the donors through the CO⋯I interaction, which were significantly shorter than the sum of the van der Waals radii of the atoms involved and among the shortest reported for neutral organic molecules. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy characteristic core level shifts strongly indicated the formation of halogen bonding interactions. These studies suggest that this synthon can utilize both hydrogen and halogen bonding orthogonally to build complex structures.

Synergistic effects of hydrogen and halogen bonding in co-crystals of dipyridylureas and diiodotetrafluorobenzenes

Abstract Herein, we investigate co-crystallization of three linear co-formers that contain urea and pyridyl groups with three regioisomers of diiodotetrafluorobenzene (DITFB) to afford eleven co-crystals. The linear o-, m-, and p- dipyridylureas vary distance and geometry between the urea carbonyl oxygen and two pyridyl nitrogen acceptors, while the donors consist of urea NH groups and the activated halides in DITFB. Electrostatic potential calculations suggest that the o-dipyridylurea co-former presents two significantly different acceptors. In comparison, the acceptors in the m- and p-dipyridylurea co-formers display electrostatic potentials within 5–6 kJ/mol and should be competitive, potentially leading to altered assembly motifs. Overall, ten of the co-crystals consistently display the urea assembly motif as the best acceptor/donor pair. Seven structures were obtained as the predicted 1:1 ratio with halogen bonding interactions linking ditopic halogen bond donors and the pyridyl units through N···I interactions ranging from 78.4 to 83.1% of the van der Waals radii. Modified structures were more likely when there was a structural mismatch with the geometrically challenging o-DITFB donor and m- or p-dipyridylurea co-former. The majority of the co-crystal structures (10/11) demonstrated fully satisfied hydrogen and halogen bonding interactions suggesting that these synthons can be used synergistically to generate complex solid-state structures.