Macrocyclic ligands redox responsive

Macrocycles attached to redox responsive groups such as ferrocene (78) can give selective transition metal ion receptors. The X-ray structure reveals a five-coordinate zinc with distorted square-pyramidal geometry bound to the four macrocycle nitrogens and an iodide. In the solid state the two ferrocenyl groups are positioned on the same side of the ligand with distances to the metal center of 5.347(7) and 6.120(8) A and these distances can be related to the redox behavior.689... 

Some chemical substances have been used in the past as switches to control ion transport. Several new molecular sensory devices, which are responsive crown ethers used for the dynamic control of cation and anion binding induced by changes in pH, redox potential, temperature, light, and magnetic and electrical field, have been developed. These new ligands possess chromophores or fluorophores linked to the macrocycle, and display drastic variations in their photochemical and/or luminescent properties upon cation complexation. 

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