Strategic anion templation

This review provides first a brief overview of the general field of templation, with particular emphasis placed on previous uses of strategies utilising anion templation effects in the construction of sophisticated interweaved motifs. It focuses on the development and exploitation of a new anion templation strategy which utilises the properties of discrete halide anions to direct the formation of a range of novel architectures, including orthogonal complex, [2]-pseudorotaxane, [2]-rotaxane and [2]-catenane derivatives. These derivatives have been shown to exhibit novel anion binding behaviour which is dependent on their interlocked nature, a feature which has further been exploited by the incorporation of signalling groups to sense the anion binding event.