Macrocyclic ligands polythia

Polyaza-, polythia-ligands. Recognition of transition metal ions. Replacing the oxygen sites with nitrogen or sulphur yields macrocycles and cryptands that show marked preference for transition metal ions and may also allow highly selective complexation of toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury [2.41-2.44, A.14]. 

The low affinity of sulfur for alkali metal ions, however, renders template effects of less consequence in the synthesis of polythia macrocycles. Thus, the competition between cycli-zation and linear polymerization is more statistically defined, with cyclization kinetically favored only at high dilution 64,65,66). Consequently, most of the synthetic methods for the synthesis of polythia rings involve high-dilution techniques coupled with relatively long reaction times. Historically, the study of the coordination chemistry of macrocyclic thioethers has been hindered by difficulties in the synthesis of the free ligands. The synthesis of [BJaneSa, first reported by Ochrymowycz and co-workers in 1977 101), illustrates this well. 

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