Synthesis And Host-guest Recognition Of A Tetraphenylethene-based Octacationic Cage For Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons And Sulforhodamine 101

Traditional supramolecular macrocycles(crown ether,cyclodextrin,calixarene,cucurbituril,pillararene,etc)could bond guest molecules via non-covalent interactions in order to achieve novel functions.Because of their special ring-type structure and functional groups,macrocyclic compounds could bond guest molecules efficiently and construct multifunction molecular devices.For example,molecular fluorophor module can be used to develop sensing molecules with excellent performance,which can be used to detect recognizing anions/cations,neutral molecules,biological small molecules/macromolecules.Its application fields include environment,medicine,biology and electrochemical catalysis.As an important member of supramolecules,molecular cage plays vital role in supramolecular chemistry.Cage-type compounds provide suitable cavities and functional groups for various guests to achieve some novel behaviors/functions,such as ultrahigh affinity of host-guest recognition,multi-tunable photophysical property,and highly-stereoselective/photo-driven catalysis.In this theise we report the synthesis and characterization of athree-dimensional tetraphenylethene-based octacationic cage.This molecular cage is a good electron-deficient acceptor,and it could bind polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(e.g.coronene)in organic media via CH···? interactions,?-? stacking,electrostatic interactions,which makes the structure hierarchically stacked into 1D nanotube and 3D supramolecular framework.Furthermore,we utilize this octacationic cage as a single-molecular fluorescent platform to build host-guest complex with dye guests(sulforhodamine 101)and study the fluorescence properties of the complexes formed with individual subject and guest molecules.This study provides insight into constructing cationic cage with both fluorescence and host-guest properties,and might facilitate further design of multifunctional cages(e.g.chiral recognition and catalysis,energy transfer,and drug delivery)and other fluorescent supramolecular systems based on host-guest recognition.