AbstractsBiology & Animal Science

Mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) have been studied extensively due to their ability to function as molecular motors, machines, and molecular muscles in solution. Unfortunately, these systems lack organization in solution and the motions exhibited are incoherent. This has stimulated interest towards installing MIMs as ligands into metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to improve the molecular organization and coherency of these systems. The material presented in this thesis describes the synthesis of two benzimidazole-crown ether (24C6) based cyclic daisy chain dimers for the first time. Upon further functionalization, one of the cyclic daisy chain dimers has the potential to be used as a pillaring ligand to separate 2D-layers in pillared MOFs.