The team expected the assembly to form a helicate rather than catenate structure
Predicting the structure of large self-assembled units can become very complicated very quickly. Yet it is important for the rational design of new structures to understand how they assemble so new arrangements can be designed, with functional and valuable properties.
This Hot Article from the Piguet group investigates whether a pyridyl-benzimidazole ligand forms a double stranded helicate or a catenated architecture. The thermodynamic approach used to investigate the structures throws up some interesting results.
Looking for the origin of the switch between coordination-captured helicates and catenates
Lilit Aboshyan-Sorgho, Martine Cantuel, Gérald Bernardinelli and Claude Piguet
DOI: 10.1039/C2DT30414G
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