A supramolecular 2 : 1 guanidinium–carboxylate based building block for generation of water channels and clusters in organic materials

Abstract

A bicyclic guanidine derivative is used here to generate a hydrogen-bonded 2 : 1 complex with bipyridine dicarboxylic acid. This supramolecule has numerous additional H-bond acceptors and is expected to display a high propensity for inclusion of water molecules in the solid state. Depending on the initial crystallization, it is in fact possible to utilize this property to build structures with water tetramers and unidirectional water channels.