Wang Ying, associate professor of Beijing Normal University and Jiang Hua's research group: a multi-stage variable speed molecular rotor controlled by acid, alkali and metal ions

It is always a scientific problem to control the speed of the rotating device on the molecular level In particular, the problem of how to control the rotating speed of the rotor step by step (multi pole variable speed) in a wide speed range has not been solved Recently, Wang Ying, associate professor of Beijing Normal University and Jiang Hua's research group developed a new strategy to stabilize the internal rotation transition state of the molecular rotor to varying degrees by introducing different types of non covalent bond forces (NAT Commun 2018, 9, 1953) Wang Ying, associate professor of Beijing Normal University In 2010, he graduated from the Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and obtained a Ph.D degree in organic chemistry from researcher Jiang Hua From 2010 to 2014, he was engaged in postdoctoral research at the University of Nebraska Lincoln in the United States His co tutor was Professor Andrzej rajca In 2014, he joined the research group of Professor Jiang Hua of Beijing Normal University At present, he is an associate professor of School of chemistry, Beijing Normal University, mainly focusing on the construction of new artificial molecular machines (NAT Commun., 2018, 9, 1953; J am Chem SOC., 2016, 138, 15849 − 15852), functional self-assembly systems (J org Chem., 2018, 83, 733 − 739; chem Commu., 2016, 52, 4505 – 4508; chem EUR J., 2016, 22, 5233 – 5242), preparation and application of stable organic radicals (J am Chem SOC., 2017, 139, 7144 − 7147; J am Chem SOC., 2016, 138, 7298 − 7304; NAT Commun., 2014, 5, 5460; J am Chem SOC., 2012, 134, 15724 – 15727) Jiang Hua, Professor of Beijing Normal University In 2001, he graduated from the Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and obtained a doctor's degree in organic chemistry From 2001 to 2003, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in instituteurop é en de chimie et Biologie (France) From 2004 to 2006, he worked as a research assistant in the Department of chemistry and biochemistry of the University of Notre Dame In 2006, he was selected to work in the Institute of chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a researcher under the "hundred talents" program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences In 2008, he was awarded the "one hundred talents" program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and in 2012, the "one hundred talents" program was outstanding In 2011, he won the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars In 2012, he won the excellent graduate tutor award of Chinese Academy of Sciences Transferred to Beijing Normal University in 2013 The research field is supramolecular chemistry The research interest is to design and construct functional self-assembly systems More than 90 SCI papers have been published in science, NAT Commun., J am Chem SOC., angel Chem Int ed., etc Relevant research results were reviewed by science, nature chemistry, C & en, highlights in Chemical Sciences and journals of Chinese Academy of Sciences In 2011, science and technology daily, science and technology times and other media reported the research results published on science Cutting edge scientific research achievements: a multi-stage variable speed molecular rotor machine controlled by acid, alkali and metal ions is one of the focuses and hot spots of scientific research in recent years The machine system that it tries to build operates at the molecular scale has broad application prospects in intelligent materials, new sensors and intelligent drugs Rotating molecular device is an important primary molecular machine (or the structural component of complex molecular machine) The controllability of its rotation is one of the key factors affecting the practical ability of molecular machine in the future However, due to the complexity of molecular thermal motion, it is a great challenge to realize the precise control of the motion of rotating molecular devices, including the rotational mode and rotational speed Jianghua / Wang Ying research group has carried out a series of research in the field of motion control of rotating molecular devices Based on the supramolecular self-assembly strategy, they constructed a molecular transmission device (J.Org Chem 2015, 80, 11302 − 11312) which can convert the motion mode from rotation to vibration, and optimized the preparation method of molecular revolving door (J.Org Chem 2016, 81, 3364 − 3371), and on this basis, the molecular gate with the flexible straight chain as the rotor was synthesized The mechanism that the steric resistance of the flexible straight chain depends on its movement time scale was first revealed, and the molecular gate was transformed between the rotation mode and the vibration mode by using this mechanism (j.am.chem.soc 2016, 138, 15849 − 15852) Fig 1 Molecular rotors and their multistage speed changes under chemical stimulation (source: nature Communications) how to control the rotation speed of rotors in a wide range of speed step by step is a scientific problem; although this problem has been concerned by molecular machine researchers for a long time, there are few solutions to this problem In recent years, several cases have tried to change the direction of rotor rotation resistance, but the effect is limited Recently, in order to solve this problem, Jianghua / Wang Ying group, in cooperation with Xiang Junfeng, researcher of the Institute of chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed for the first time to stabilize the internal rotation transition state of the molecular rotor in different degrees by introducing different types of non covalent bond forces (especially several metal coordination actions with different intensities), so as to achieve the purpose of multi-level speed change Based on this strategy, the author designed a simple molecular rotor based on succinimide group and phenol group, and adjusted its acidity by different substituents on phenol group to improve the "stimulus response" ability of molecular rotor With the help of the electrostatic repulsion force in the molecule formed by the deprotonization stimulated by alkali and the electrostatic force in the molecule formed between the stator and rotor of different metal cations and the deprotonization rotor, the author realized the first time to adjust the speed of the molecular rotor to four gears (one near static gear, one low gear, one medium speed gear and one high speed gear) in the range of 10 – 2 ~ 105 Hz (Fig 1) Fig 2 (a) ground state and rotational transition state of molecular rotor; (b) rotational transition state of deprotonated molecular rotor metal ion complex (source: nature Communications) The experimental mechanism study and calculation results (Fig 2) show that the anti ion of the deprotonated molecular rotor has no effect on the rotational energy barrier and rotational speed of the system, and the realization of its multi-level variable speed regulation depends entirely on the stability difference of the internal rotational transition state under different stimulation Fig 3 Reversible transformation of the molecular rotor system at different speeds (source: nature Communications) Finally, in order to improve the practicability of the multi-stage variable speed molecular rotor, the author explores the reversible transformation of the system at different speeds The results show that acid and fluorine ions can achieve the above-mentioned alkali and metal cation de functionalization After the introduction of auxiliary acid and fluorine ion stimulation, the author successfully realized the reversible transformation of the molecular rotor at different speeds (Fig 3) This research is helpful to solve the design problem of practical multi pole variable speed molecular rotor which has been perplexing molecular machine researchers for a long time, and is of great significance to promote the application and development of molecular machine in the future This work was recently published on nature communications Wu Yingying (a third year postgraduate of Beijing Normal University) is the first author of the paper, and Wang Guangxia and Li Qiaolian have done a lot of preliminary work for the research This work is supported by NSFC and 973 project fund Nowadays, people and scientific research have been paid more and more attention in the economic life China has ushered in the "node of science and technology explosion" Behind the progress of science and technology is the work of countless scientists In the field of chemistry, in the context of the pursuit of innovation driven, international cooperation has been strengthened, the influence of Returned Scholars in the field of R & D has become increasingly prominent, and many excellent research groups have emerged in China For this reason, CBG information adopts the 1 + X reporting mechanism CBG information, chembeango app, chembeango official microblog, CBG wechat subscription number and other platforms jointly launch the column of "people and scientific research", approach the domestic representative research group, pay attention to their research, listen to their stories, record their demeanor, and explore their scientific research spirit.