Multi-chiral materials comprising metallosupramolecular and covalent helical polymers containing five axial motifs within a helix

Abstract

Supramolecular and covalent polymers share multiple structural effects such as communication mechanisms among monomer repeating units, which are related to their axial helical structure. Herein, a unique multi-helical material combining information from both metallosupramolecular and covalent helical polymers is presented. In this system, the helical structure described by the poly(acetylene) (PA) backbone (cis-cisoidal, cis-transoidal) guides the pendant groups in a fashion where a tilting degree emerges between a pendant and the adjacent ones. As a result, a multi-chiral material is formed comprising four or five axial motifs when the polyene skeleton adopts either a cis-transoidal or cis-cisoidal configuration: the two coaxial helices—internal and external—and the two or three chiral axial motifs described by the bispyridyldichlorido PtII complex array. These results show that complex multi-chiral materials can be obtained by polymerizing appropriate monomers that combine both point chirality and the ability to generate chiral supramolecular assemblies.