No description available.

The focus of the following research was to use the self-assembly process to create rotaxanes between several large bisphenylene crown ethers (> 22 atoms) with secondary ammonium salts. Also of great interest was to understand the complexation behavior of the crown ethers with the salts, with emphasis on determining the stoichiometries and association constants of the complexations in solution using NMR spectroscopy. The stoichiometry of the complexes was determined by the mole ratio method and the association constants were calculated graphically. Bis-(m-phenylene)-26-crown-8 did not form a complex in solution with several secondary ammonium salts even though the cavity size is large enough to allow the formation of pseudorotaxanes. However, the larger crown ether, bis-(m-phenylene)-32-crown-10 (BMP32C10), did form a complex. The complex stoichiometry varied between 1:1 (crown:salt) in solution and 1:2 in the solid state as evidenced by NMR and X-ray crystallography, respectively. The solid state complexes were pseudorotaxanes. Also, an interesting "exo" complex was formed in the solid state between BMP32C10 and a secondary diammonium salt. The major binding force for the complexes in the X-ray structures was hydrogen bonding. Weaker secondary stabilization was achieved via aryl-aryl aromatic interactions. The difference between the stoichiometries in the two phases and the observance of an "exo" complex demonstrates that one must be careful in describing the complexes in each phase. Also investigated was the complexation formed between dibenzo-24-crown-8 (DB24C8) and secondary diammonium salts. The association constants for the complexes were found to be relatively higher. Due to the weaker association constants and the different stoichiometries of complexation the meta-susbtituted bisphenylene crown ethers were not recommended for the formation of larger complexes, i.e. polyrotaxanes. However, it is suggested that the DB24C8 moiety be used in components of supramolecular assemblies. The functionalization of poly(propylene imine) dendrimers with two different crown ethers as peripheral moieties was attempted. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th generation poly(propylene imine) dendrimers were functionalized with 1,3-phenylene-16-crown-5 moieties by reacting the surface primary amines with the corresponding succinimide ester of the crown ether. The larger DB24C8 succinimide ester was not as reactive and full functionalization was not achieved. / Ph. D.

A novel crown ether precursor was developed in which a rigid 4-oxahexacyclo (5.4.1.26.3,10.05,9.08,11) dodecyl cage moiety ("cage functionality") was incorporated.

No description available.

Due in large part to the growth and development of reliable surface characterization techniques, as well as to advances in the physical and chemical techniques used to modify surfaces, the technology of surface modification has seen rapid expansion over the past two decades. A major thrust of this research is the growth of controlled/"living" polymeric brushes from the surface of various substrates, an advance that promises to be a facile and reproducible way of altering surface properties. A unique initiator bearing ATRP (atom transfer radical polymerization), cleavage, and condensation functionalities was prepared and attached to the hydrolyzed surface of silica gel. Preliminary results indicate that control of reversibly terminated grafts of varying degrees of polymerization with polydispersity indices approaching 1.5 can be readily achieved-significant findings in the quest to design desired surface characteristics. Important physical characteristics may also be altered by way of varying molecular topologies. In the second major research thrust, the use of self-assembly to construct such topologies in the form of pseudorotaxanes fashioned from diverse macrocycles with multifarious guest ions is discussed. While the underlying goal was to investigate and understand the mode of complexation based on such environmental factors as substituent affects and neighboring group influences, new insight was gained on the synthetic manipulation of cooperative events-events that freely occur in nature. The complexation behavior of several functionalized bis-(meta-phenylene)-32-crown-10 macrocycles with various paraquat guest moieties was. As expected, studies indicated that electron-donating substituents on the crown ether drive association, a likely result of increased p -p interactions among host and guest species. The association between a bicyclic macrocycle and dimethyl paraquat was also investigated. Not surprisingly, binding of paraquat by the bicyclic was much stronger than the binding found in analogous macrocycles. Lastly, the endgroup functionalization of poly(propyleneimine) dendrimers with two crown ether macrocycles was performed and the complexation with host-specific guests studied. Curiously, two extreme binding regimes were found: the larger 32-membered crown ether assembly displayed anti-cooperative behavior upon complexation with paraquat, while the smaller 24-membered macrocyclic system exhibited cooperative effects with 2o ammonium ions. These cooperative results are among the very first described for non-biological systems and hint at their potential use in developing highly efficient, synthetically designed supramolecular systems. / Master of Science