A precise polyrotaxane synthesizer

We report the assembly line–like emergence of poly[n]rotaxanes with increasingly higher energies by harnessing artificial molecular pumps to deliver rings in pairs by cyclical redox-driven processes. This programmable strategy leads to the precise incorporation of two, four, six, eight, and 10 rings carrying 8+, 16+, 24+, 32+, and 40+ charges, respectively, onto hexacationic polymer dumbbells. This strategy depends precisely on the number of redox cycles applied chemically or electrochemically, in both stepwise and one-pot manners.

Source: ScienceNOW - June 10, 2020 Category: Science Authors: Qiu, Y., Song, B., Pezzato, C., Shen, D., Liu, W., Zhang, L., Feng, Y., Guo, Q.-H., Cai, K., Li, W., Chen, H., Nguyen, M. T., Shi, Y., Cheng, C., Astumian, R. D., Li, X., Stoddart, J. F. Tags: Chemistry reports Source Type: news