Principle of Molecular Imprinting for Metal Complexes on Surfaces

Principle of Molecular Imprinting for Metal Complexes on Surfaces 

In addition to imprinted acid-base catalysts [49-55], attempts to imprint metal complexes have been reported and constitute the current state of the art [46, 47]. In most cases of metal-complex imprinting, ligands of the complexes are used as template molecules, which aims to create a cavity near the metal site. Molecular imprinting of metal complexes exhibits several notable features (i) attachment of metal complex on robust supports (ii) surrounding of the metal complex by polymer matrix and (iii) production of a shape selective cavity on the metal site. Metal complexes thus imprinted have been appHed to molecular recognition [56, 57], reactive complex stabilization [58, 59], Hgand exchange reaction [60] and catalysis [61-70]. 

Molecular Imprinting of Rh Dimers and Rh Monomers atSi02 Surfaces 

The strategy used to design active and selective catalysts was based on the following five factors for regulation, (i) conformation of ligands coordinated to Rh atom (ii) orientation of a vacant site on Rh (iii) cavity with the template molecular shape for reaction space produced behind template removal (iv) architecture of the cavity wall and (v) micropore in inorganic polymer-matrix overlayers stabilizing the active species at the surface [46, 47, 71]. 

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