A facile route to multifunctional cage silsesquioxanes via the photochemical thiol–ene reaction

•One step to multifunctional cage precursors.•A highly efficient photochemical thiol–ene reaction.•Commercially available multifunctional thiols.•Versatile octavinylsilsesquioxane.

Starting from octavinylsilsesquioxane (OVS), several multifunctional cage silsesquioxanes were successfully prepared by the photo–induced thiol–ene reaction with the corresponding commercially available thiols. These cage compounds were fully characterized by FTIR, NMR, ESI–MS and element analysis.

Graphical abstractOctavinylsilsesquioxane (OVS) was selected as the starting material to react with a series of commercially available thiols bearing hydroxyl, carboxyl, amino and bi–/tri–alkoxysilane groups to produce the corresponding functionalized cage monomers via the photochemical thiol–ene reaction.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide