Photocatalysis in Water-Soluble Supramolecular Metal Organic Complex

Abstract

As an emerging subset of organic complexes, metal complexes have garnered considerable attention owing to their outstanding structures, properties, and applications. In this content, metal-organic cages (MOCs) with defined shapes and sizes provide internal spaces to isolate water for guest molecules, which can be selectively captured, isolated, and released to achieve control over chemical reactions. Complex supramolecules are constructed by simulating the self-assembly behavior of the molecules or structures in nature. For this purpose, massive amounts of cavity-containing supramolecules, such as metal-organic cages (MOCs), have been extensively explored for a large variety of reactions with a high degree of reactivity and selectivity. Because sunlight and water are necessary for the process of photosynthesis, water-soluble metal-organic cages (WSMOCs) are ideal platforms for photo-responsive stimulation and photo-mediated transformation by simulating photosynthesis due to their defined sizes, shapes, and high modularization of metal centers and ligands. Therefore, the design and synthesis of WSMOCs with uncommon geometries embedded with functional building units is of immense importance for artificial photo-responsive stimulation and photo-mediated transformation. In this review, we introduce the general synthetic strategies of WSMOCs and their applications in this sparking field.

Artificial Photosynthases: Single-Chain Nanoparticles with Manifold Visible-Light Photocatalytic Activity for Challenging “in Water” Organic Reactions

“…In nature, only three types of enzymes carry out purely photocatalytic organic reactions. − Indeed, the design of abiotic protein nanoreactors capable of custom photoreactions requires extensive genetic engineering effort. − In organic photochemistry, the scarce solubility of reactants in aqueous media and severe catalyst deactivation are of central concern for the replacement of organic solvents with water. While several strategies have been recently proposed, − only a few works have been devoted to the use of ultrafine soft nano-objects as efficient visible-light photocatalysts of “in water” organic reactions. , …”