The research team of Wang Dexian, Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences has made new progress in the study of noncovalent interaction

Noncovalent interaction is the basic scientific principle of supramolecular chemistry The study of new noncovalent interaction can provide new driving force for the design of supramolecular system and functional materials, and promote people's deep understanding of life system Anionic - π interaction, that is, the interaction between anions and electron deficient aromatic rings, was not recognized until the beginning of this century, and showed great potential as a new type of noncovalent interaction With the support of NSFC, the Ministry of science and technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Dexian, a research team from the Key Laboratory of molecular recognition and function Institute, Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, carried out a systematic study on the anion - π effect In the previous work, they used the large ring system containing electron deficient triazine ring as molecular probe, and gave the experimental evidence of the classical anion π interaction between the electron neutral electron deficient aromatic ring and anion, and systematically studied its action mode, action intensity, universality and application in the field of supramolecular chemistry (angelw Chem Int ed 2008, 47, 7485; Chem Eur J 2010 , 16 , 13053; J Am Chem Soc 2013 , 135 , 892; Angew Chem Int Ed 2015 , 54 , 11785 ）。
Recently, aiming at the challenge of how to realize the selectivity and additivity of anion - π interaction, researchers have cleverly designed a kind of super large ring system with multi cavity "inward" arrangement to realize the selective recognition of complex organic anions For the first time, the formation of sandwich shaped anion - π complex has been observed in the crystal, revealing the multiple anions- Contribution of π action to molecular recognition (Figure 1) (angelw Chem Int ed 2018, 57, 15827) At the same time, in order to answer how far the anion π action can drive controllable self-assembly, the researchers constructed a "outward oriented" double cavity molecular system as the main assembly unit, and took 1,5-naphthalene disulfonate double anion as the object assembly unit to realize the long-range assembly driven by anion π action The assembly process (Fig 2) (J Am Chem Soc 2019 , 141 , 1118 ）。
Figure 1 recognition of organic anions based on multiple anion π interaction (source: angelw Chem Int ed.) Figure 2 supramolecular self-assembly driven by anion π interaction (source: J am Chem SOC.)