Assembly of supermolecular complexes from the tripodal ligand titmb: assembly of a large M6L8 cage from 14 components

The coordinatively saturated, nanometer-sized M6L8 complex [Pd-6(titmb)(8)]Cl-12.2H(2)O (titmb = 1,3,5-bis( imidazol-1-ylmethyl)-2,4,6-trimethylbenzene) was obtained by assembly of six Pd(II) ions with eight flexible titmb tripodal ligands; structural analysis shows that these eight titmb are in a disordered cube configuration and the six Pd atoms are in a disordered octahedral configuration; the inner cavity of the cage is estimated to have a volume of 1000 Angstrom(3), large enough to encapsulate eight Cl- anions.