Five Porous Complexes Constructed from a Racemic Ligand: Synthesis, Chiral Self-Assembly, Iodine Adsorption, and Desorption Properties.

Herein, a chiral bispyridyl ligand () was designed and synthesized using a Schiff base condensation reaction, followed by a 1,3-H shift. Five complexes, [Zn(OAc)] (), {[CdCl(DMF)]·4HO} (), [CdI]·4HO (), {[Cd(HO)](NO)·2CHOH} (), and [HgCl]·2DMF (), were synthesized and characterized upon its reaction with Zn(II), Cd(II), or Hg(II) ions, respectively. X-ray crystallography shows that the organic compound exists as a racemic ligand with equal amounts of its - and -isomers, and all of the synthesized complexes exhibit heterochiral self-assembly via a chiral self-discrimination process. Complexes , , and exist as centrosymmetric binuclear metallamacrocycles, while complexes and exist as 1D looped-chain coordination polymers. Inspired by the assembled structures of the five complexes, I adsorption/desorption measurements for the complexes were carried out. The results show that complexes and exhibit good adsorption capacities toward I in -hexane and in water, respectively.