Guest Encapsulation Scope of a Triptycene-Based Pd2L4 Coordination Cage

The scope of a lantern-shaped, triptycene-based Pd2L4 coordination cage to encapsulate various carbon-rich guests was investigated. The cage was found to bind two molecules of corannulene and a variety of C60 derivatives in moderate to quantitative yields. Non-disruptive extraction of encapsulated fullerene derivative PC61BM from the cage was demonstrated by the simple addition of CS2 into an acetonitrile solution of the host-guest complex. This process can be accomplished in a layer-to-layer fashion, and thus, the recovered cage can be further utilized in a recycling process. As this self-assembled host is readily synthesized and able to transfer fullerenes and a range of its derivatives into polar organic solvents, it allows to facilitate purification, chemical modification and solid-state processing of fullerenes for a range of materials applications.