Construction of Supramolecular Organic Frameworks Based on Noria and Bipyridine Type Spacers

Among the class of porous crystalline materials, supramolecular organic frameworks (SOFs) have proven to be of great importance due to their potential applications in gas sorption/separation, catalysis, and nanotechnology. Herein, we present construction and characterization of two novel SOFs based on a large macrocyclic compound, noria, and linker molecules such as 4,4′-bypyridine and 1,2-bis(4-pyridyl)ethylene. Use of bipyridine type spacer molecules can partially or completely replace typical O–H···O intermolecular hydrogen bonds between noria molecules by O–H···N interactions. Due to the moderate length difference, the two spacer molecules lead to the assembly of 1D chains and 2D networks, respectively.