A New Class of Customisable Stable Boronic Ester Assembly

An efficient, customisable approach for the assembly of covalent macrocycles and cages has been developed using the reaction of fused polynorbornane based bis-norbornane diols and commercially available boronic acids. The resultant assemblies were resistant to hydrolysis even after 24-hour exposure to solutions of either acetic acid or trifluoroacetic acid. The ability to customise the requisite bis-diol to various lengths and dihedral angle (here both 90° and 180°) and then combine with di or triboronic acids allows access to range of architectures.