Trapping Virtual Pores by Crystal Retro-engineering

Marc A. Little; Michael E. Briggs; James T. A. Jones; Marc Schmidtmann; Tom Hasell; Samantha Y. Chong; Kim E. Jelfs; Linjiang Chen; Andrew I. Cooper

doi:10.1038/nchem.2156

Trapping Virtual Pores by Crystal Retro-engineering

Marc A. Little, Michael E. Briggs, James T. A. Jones, Marc Schmidtmann, Tom Hasell, Samantha Y. Chong, Kim E. Jelfs, Linjiang Chen, Andrew I. Cooper^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

50 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Stable guest-free porous molecular crystals are uncommon. By contrast, organic molecular crystals with guest-occupied cavities are frequently observed, but these cavities tend to be unstable and collapse on removal of the guests - this feature has been referred to as 'virtual porosity'. Here, we show how we have trapped the virtual porosity in an unstable low-density organic molecular crystal by introducing a second molecule that matches the size and shape of the unstable voids. We call this strategy 'retro-engineering' because it parallels organic retrosynthetic analysis, and it allows the metastable two-dimensional hexagonal pore structure in an organic solvate to be trapped in a binary cocrystal. Unlike the crystal with virtual porosity, the cocrystal material remains single crystalline and porous after removal of guests by heating.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	153-159
Number of pages	7
Journal	Nature Chemistry
Volume	7
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2156
Publication status	Published - Jan 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Chemistry
General Chemical Engineering

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title = "Trapping Virtual Pores by Crystal Retro-engineering",

abstract = "Stable guest-free porous molecular crystals are uncommon. By contrast, organic molecular crystals with guest-occupied cavities are frequently observed, but these cavities tend to be unstable and collapse on removal of the guests - this feature has been referred to as 'virtual porosity'. Here, we show how we have trapped the virtual porosity in an unstable low-density organic molecular crystal by introducing a second molecule that matches the size and shape of the unstable voids. We call this strategy 'retro-engineering' because it parallels organic retrosynthetic analysis, and it allows the metastable two-dimensional hexagonal pore structure in an organic solvate to be trapped in a binary cocrystal. Unlike the crystal with virtual porosity, the cocrystal material remains single crystalline and porous after removal of guests by heating.",

author = "Little, \{Marc A.\} and Briggs, \{Michael E.\} and Jones, \{James T. A.\} and Marc Schmidtmann and Tom Hasell and Chong, \{Samantha Y.\} and Jelfs, \{Kim E.\} and Linjiang Chen and Cooper, \{Andrew I.\}",

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T1 - Trapping Virtual Pores by Crystal Retro-engineering

AU - Little, Marc A.

AU - Briggs, Michael E.

AU - Jones, James T. A.

AU - Schmidtmann, Marc

AU - Hasell, Tom

AU - Chong, Samantha Y.

AU - Jelfs, Kim E.

AU - Chen, Linjiang

AU - Cooper, Andrew I.

PY - 2015/1

Y1 - 2015/1

N2 - Stable guest-free porous molecular crystals are uncommon. By contrast, organic molecular crystals with guest-occupied cavities are frequently observed, but these cavities tend to be unstable and collapse on removal of the guests - this feature has been referred to as 'virtual porosity'. Here, we show how we have trapped the virtual porosity in an unstable low-density organic molecular crystal by introducing a second molecule that matches the size and shape of the unstable voids. We call this strategy 'retro-engineering' because it parallels organic retrosynthetic analysis, and it allows the metastable two-dimensional hexagonal pore structure in an organic solvate to be trapped in a binary cocrystal. Unlike the crystal with virtual porosity, the cocrystal material remains single crystalline and porous after removal of guests by heating.

AB - Stable guest-free porous molecular crystals are uncommon. By contrast, organic molecular crystals with guest-occupied cavities are frequently observed, but these cavities tend to be unstable and collapse on removal of the guests - this feature has been referred to as 'virtual porosity'. Here, we show how we have trapped the virtual porosity in an unstable low-density organic molecular crystal by introducing a second molecule that matches the size and shape of the unstable voids. We call this strategy 'retro-engineering' because it parallels organic retrosynthetic analysis, and it allows the metastable two-dimensional hexagonal pore structure in an organic solvate to be trapped in a binary cocrystal. Unlike the crystal with virtual porosity, the cocrystal material remains single crystalline and porous after removal of guests by heating.

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VL - 7

SP - 153

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JO - Nature Chemistry

JF - Nature Chemistry

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Trapping Virtual Pores by Crystal Retro-engineering

Abstract

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