Issue 41, 2021

Recent advances and perspectives on supramolecular radical cages

Abstract

Supramolecular radical chemistry has been emerging as a cutting-edge interdisciplinary field of traditional supramolecular chemistry and radical chemistry in recent years. The purpose of such a fundamental research field is to combine traditional supramolecular chemistry and radical chemistry together, and take the benefit of both to eventually create new molecules and materials. Recently, supramolecular radical cages have been becoming one of the most frontier and challenging research focuses in the field of supramolecular chemistry. In this Perspective, we give a brief introduction to organic radical chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and the emerging supramolecular radical chemistry along with their history and application. Subsequently, we turn to the main part of this topic: supramolecular radical cages. The design and synthesis of supramolecular cages consisting of redox-active building blocks and radical centres are summarized. The host–guest interactions between supramolecular (radical) cages and organic radicals are also surveyed. Some interesting properties and applications of supramolecular radical cages such as their unique spin–spin interactions and intriguing confinement effects in radical-mediated/catalyzed reactions are comprehensively discussed and highlighted in the main text. The purpose of this Perspective is to help students and researchers understand the development of supramolecular radical cages, and potentially to stimulate innovation and creativity and infuse new energy into the fields of traditional supramolecular chemistry and radical chemistry as well as supramolecular radical chemistry.

Graphical abstract: Recent advances and perspectives on supramolecular radical cages

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
01 6月 2021
Accepted
31 8月 2021
First published
02 9月 2021
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., 2021,12, 13648-13663

Recent advances and perspectives on supramolecular radical cages

B. Huang, L. Mao, X. Shi and H. Yang, Chem. Sci., 2021, 12, 13648 DOI: 10.1039/D1SC01618K

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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