Issue 17, 2024

Streamlining the automated discovery of porous organic cages

Abstract

Self-assembly through dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC) can yield a range of multi-component organic assemblies. The reversibility and dynamic nature of DCC has made prediction of reaction outcome particularly difficult and thus slows the discovery rate of new organic materials. In addition, traditional experimental processes are time-consuming and often rely on serendipity. Here, we present a streamlined hybrid workflow that combines automated high-throughput experimentation, automated data analysis, and computational modelling, to accelerate the discovery process of one particular subclass of molecular organic materials, porous organic cages. We demonstrate how the design and implementation of this workflow aids in the identification of organic cages with desirable properties. The curation of a precursor library of 55 tri- and di-topic aldehyde and amine precursors enabled the experimental screening of 366 imine condensation reactions experimentally, and 1464 hypothetical organic cage outcomes to be computationally modelled. From the screen, 225 cages were identified experimentally using mass spectrometry, 54 of which were cleanly formed as a single topology as determined by both turbidity measurements and 1H NMR spectroscopy. Integration of these characterisation methods into a fully automated Python pipeline, named cagey, led to over a 350-fold decrease in the time required for data analysis. This work highlights the advantages of combining automated synthesis, characterisation, and analysis, for large-scale data curation towards an accessible data-driven materials discovery approach.

Graphical abstract: Streamlining the automated discovery of porous organic cages

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
15 Nov 2023
Accepted
12 Mar 2024
First published
13 Mar 2024
This article is Open Access

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

Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 6331-6348

Streamlining the automated discovery of porous organic cages

A. R. Basford, S. K. Bennett, M. Xiao, L. Turcani, J. Allen, Kim. E. Jelfs and R. L. Greenaway, Chem. Sci., 2024, 15, 6331 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC06133G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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