Molecular tectonics: design and structural analysis of enantiomerically pure tectons and helical coordination networks

The synthesis of the four new enantiomerically pure coordinating tectons based on isomannide or isosorbide backbone bearing two pyridine units as coordination sites was achieved and their structure analysed by X-ray diffraction on single crystals. The junction between the pyridine units, connected to the sugar moieties at either position 3 or 4, was achieved by ester groups. Under self-assembly conditions, a mixture of the tecton based on isomannide bearing two nicotinoyl groups and HgCl2 generates in the crystalline phase an enantiomerically pure single stranded helical assembly. As demonstrated by X-ray diffraction on single crystal, the infinite directional coordination networks are packed in the syn-parallel fashion, leading thus to a polar crystal. To cite this article: P. Grosshans et al., C. R. Chimie 7 (2004).