Work

An Adaptable Water-Soluble Molecular Boat for Selective Separation of Phenanthrene from Isomeric Anthracene

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Anthracene crude oil is a common source of phenanthrene for its industrial use. The isolation of phenanthrene from this source is a challenging task due to very similar physical properties to its isomer anthracene. We report here a water-soluble Pd(II) molecular boat ( MB1 ) with unusual structural topology that was obtained by assembling a flexible tetrapyridyl donor ( L ) with a cis -Pd(II) acceptor. The flexible backbone of the boat enabled it to breathe in the presence of a guest optimizing the fit within the cavity. The boat binds phenanthrene more strongly than anthracene, which enabled separation of phenanthrene with an >98% purity from an equimolar mixture of the two isomers using MB1 as an extracting agent. MB1 represents a unique example of a coordination receptor suitable for selective aqueous extraction of phenanthrene from anthracene with reusability of several cycles.

Source: Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.2c02540

Authors: Arppitha Baby Sainaba, Mangili Venkateswarulu, Pallab Bhandari, Kasun Sankalpa Athukorala Arachchige, Jack K. Clegg, Partha Sarathi Mukherjee

Institutions: Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, The University of Queensland

Language: English

Topic: Supramolecular Chemistry and Complexes

Subfield: Organic Chemistry

Field: Chemistry

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India, University Grants Commission, Science and Engineering Research Board

Award: G1537429343