Phosphine oxide functional group based three-station molecular shuttle†
Abstract
A switchable three-station rotaxane based molecular shuttle with phosphine oxide, dibenzylammonium, and urea functional groups has been developed, where the macrocycle can be easily switched between three different binding sites along the rotaxane thread by addition of acid/base or anions resulting in three stable states. Phosphine oxide is shown to be a potential recognition unit for rotaxane based molecular shuttles and plays an important role as one of three “stations”, allowing the design of a new class of molecular shuttles.