The magic effect of endocyclic but non-sterically hindering biisoquinoline chelates: From fast-moving molecular shuttles to [3]rotaxanes

The use of 8,8′-diaryl-substituted 3,3′-biisoquinolines allows the construction of new multi-component assemblies that are inaccessible with the 2,9-diaryl-substituted 1,10-phenanthroline ligands previously developed by the Sauvage group. This is due to the sterically non-hindering nature of the new chelates, which makes three-component entanglements around octahedral metal centres such as iron(II), cobalt(II) and ruthenium(II) readily possible. Among the newly synthesized molecular assemblies are [3]rotaxanes and [3]pseudorotaxanes in which two molecular strings pass through a single macrocycle, as well as molecular shuttles that exhibit greatly improved shuttling kinetics when compared to previously investigated molecular machines that are based on copper(I)/copper(II) redox chemistry.