Metal coordination as a template strategy to make resilient woven materials

Abstract

Metal coordination has been used extensively as a template strategy in the field of supramolecular chemistry. Preorganization of molecular components into a desirable orientation by metal complexation has allowed for the designed synthesis of interlocking molecules in high yields. Synthetic chemists have since learned to intertwine discrete molecular entities into entangled architectures with increasing complexity limited only by imagination. This template strategy has recently been implemented in the making woven extended structures. By linking building units that contain a metal complex core, twoand three-dimensional (2D and 3D) frameworks can be constructed where long threads of covalently linked molecules that are interwoven at regular intervals and templated by the metal ions. Upon demetalation, the threads have high degrees of freedom for spatial deviation to take place between them while preserving the overall structure, endowing the material with exceptional mechanical properties and dynamics.