Just Accepted Articles have been posted online after technical editing and typesetting for immediate view. The final edited version with page numbers will appear in the Current Issue soon.
Porous organic cage; Calix[4]resorcinarene; Perchlorate capture; Host-guest interaction; Lithium-ion transport
ABSTRACT
Organic cage compounds, which are among the most important classes of supramolecular hosts, have been found to be capable of capturing various guests through host-guest interactions due to their inherent cavities. To date, the exploration of potential applications based on such host-guest chemistry has been a subject of intensive research. Herein, we report a highly stable sp2 carbon-conjugated porous organic cage (POC), abbreviated as sp2c-POC3, formed via the Knoevenagel reaction between tetraformyl-functionalized calix[4]resorcinarene and V-shaped diacetonitrile subunits. X-ray crystallographic analysis reveals that sp2c-POC3 is a [2+4] long lantern-shaped cage. It contains four rhombic windows with an average edge length of approximately 2.1 nm and a large cavity with a volume of approximately 782 Å3. Notably, this cage can selectively capture perchlorate (ClO4-) anions. Taking advantage of such anion trapping ability and the porous nature, a quasi-solid-state electrolyte (QSSE) based on sp2c-POC3 and incorporating LiClO4 has been rationally designed. This sp2c-POC3-based QSSE exhibits a high ionic conductivity of 2.5×10-3 S cm-1 at room temperature.