Fig. 1: Exterior cross-linking strategy for the construction of knotted cages and organic covalent-interwoven structures.
From: Synthesis of covalently linked knotted cage frameworks
Cage frameworks 1 and 2 serve as scaffolds for cross-linking into knotted cages 3 and 4 through the addition of tritopic linkers. The dynamic-covalent imine bonds of these topologically complex structures may then be reduced to secondary amines, and the metal ions removed, to create metal-free organic perplexane 5 and knotted tetrahedron 6. The red arrows indicate how the organic backbone structure moves during structural transformations.
