Issue 41, 2023

Picking the lock of coordination cage catalysis

Abstract

The design principles of metallo-organic assembly reactions have facilitated access to hundreds of coordination cages of varying size and shape. Many of these assemblies possess a well-defined cavity capable of hosting a guest, pictorially mimicking the action of a substrate binding to the active site of an enzyme. While there are now a growing collection of coordination cages that show highly proficient catalysis, exhibiting both excellent activity and efficient turnover, this number is still small compared to the vast library of metal–organic structures that are known. In this review, we will attempt to unpick and discuss the key features that make an effective coordination cage catalyst, linking structure to activity (and selectivity) using lessons learnt from both experimental and computational analysis of the most notable exemplars. We will also provide an outlook for this area, reasoning why coordination cages have the potential to become the gold-standard in (synthetic) non-covalent catalysis.

Graphical abstract: Picking the lock of coordination cage catalysis

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Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
22 Mai 2023
Accepted
29 Aug 2023
First published
08 Sep 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 11300-11331

Picking the lock of coordination cage catalysis

T. K. Piskorz, V. Martí-Centelles, R. L. Spicer, F. Duarte and P. J. Lusby, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 11300 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC02586A

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