Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 10 Sauvage's skeletal
diagram of a catenand, a
major breakthrough in 1983.
Reprinted with permission
from [
73
] (copyright 1986
American Chemical Society)
Sauvage's metal coordination template marked the beginning of the modern era
of MIMs: template-directed synthesis. Advances in this modern era have been
associated with building new interlocked topologies and architectures (Sects.
4.1
and
4.2
), discovering new template-directed methods (Sect.
4.3
) and emergent
properties (Sect.
4.4
), and creating molecular switches and machines (Sect.
4.5
).
In Sects.
3.2
-
3.5
, we examine how depictions of MIMs have changed alongside
these many new developments of an evolutionary nature. With simple two- and
three-component MIMs, it was possible to achieve Sauvage's gold standard of
drawings, but as complexity and diversity grew in the field, it quickly became
useful to turn to new tools that aided and abetted the depiction of MIMs in an eye-
catching, easily discernable way - namely with the use of color, crystal structures,
and cartoons.
3.2 The Use of Color
Color and MIMs go together like bread and butter. When journals began printing
color in the mid-1980s, the mechanical bond made the perfect poster child because
color dramatically clarified mechanically interlocked structures, which cannot be
drawn without bonds crossing over and under one another. The first example in a
primary publication [
74
] came from the crystal structure of a [3]catenate
synthesized in the Sauvage group (Fig.
11
). The carbon atoms in each macrocycle
were uniquely colored, making each of the three components immediately and
effortlessly discernable. This creative act represented a veritable leap forward in
MIM portrayal and heralded the changes in chemical depiction that would continue
to evolve.
