Cover Picture: Highly Stable Molecular Borromean Rings (Chin. J. Chem. 2/2018)

• Published in: Chinese journal of chemistry Vol. 36; no. 2; p. 85
• Main Authors: Lu, Ye, Lin, Yuejian, Li, Zhenhua, Jin, Guoxin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shanghai Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.02.2018
• Subjects: Catalysts; Rectangles; Stability
• ISSN: 1001-604X; 1614-7065
• DOI: 10.1002/cjoc.201880021

The cover picture shows a series of Cp*Rh‐based molecular Borromean rings (BRs), which consist of three chemically independent rings that are locked in such a way that no two of the three rings are linked with each other. Interestingly, the structure of BRs is very similar to Kong Ming Lock (孔明锁), a kind of Chinese traditional six‐piece burr puzzle. In this work, some of as‐synthesized BRs display high stability in solution. The reason is related to the length ratio of the long‐arm linker and short‐arm linker, where smaller aspect ratios of the metallarectangles promote improved stability of the BRs in solution. Increasing the width of the metallaligand or pyridyl ligand hinders the formation of BRs and leads to unoccupied monomeric rectangles, which were further used as catalysts. More details are discussed in the article by Jin et al. on page 106–111. image