Guest-dependent complexation of triptycene-derived macrotricyclic host containing one anthracene moiety with paraquat derivatives: construction of [2]rotaxanes

Complexation between the triptycene-derived macrotricyclic polyether containing an anthracene unit and paraquat derivatives in both solution and solid state was investigated. It was found that the macrotricyclic host with multi-cavity structure could form a series of [2]pseudorotaxanes with different terminal functionalised paraquat derivatives in different threading modes, which subsequently resulted in the construction of two novel [2]rotaxanes.