Confinement of metal complexes within porous hosts: Development of functional materials for gas binding and catalysis

The development of porous functional materials, using template copolymerization, that function in gas binding/release and catalysis is described. Using substitutionally inert metal complexes as templates, materials were prepared with immobilized sites that retained structural properties of the template; this allows for tunable functional properties. Chemical modification of the immobilized sites led to coordinatively unsaturated metal centers that reversibly bind either O-2 or NO. Materials have also been prepared that exhibit varying degrees of catalytic activity in the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of epoxides as a function of the template concentration used to prepare the polymers.