Homochiral coordination cages assembled from dinuclear paddlewheel nodes and enantiopure ditopic ligands: syntheses, structures and catalysis

A series of homochiral metal-organic cages (MOCs) have been obtained from self-assembly of Cu(II) salts with chiral N, N'-(bicyclo[2,2,2] oct-7-ene-tetracarboxylic)-bis-amino acids. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses reveal that these compounds show a lantern-type cage structure, in which one pair of Cu-2(CO2)(4) paddlewheels is linked by four diacid ligands. The resulting homochiral cages have been fully characterized by EA, TOF-MS, TGA, VTPXRD, IR, UV, and CD measurements. The catalytic tests reveal that these Cu(II) cages are effective in cyclopropanation with excellent diastereoselectivity (up to 99 : 1 E/Z). In addition, the cage catalysts can promote the aziridination reaction with PhI=NNs.