Sugar Metal Carbenes as Organometallic Gelators

In spite of the bulky metal carbonyl fragment and the missing amide oxygen functionality efficient hydrogen bonding in combination with hydrophobic interactions allow for gelation of chlorinated and aromatic solvents and mixtures 

The metal carbene moiety is often compatible with a variety of additional functionalization that makes this type of metal carbenes attractive for the synthesis and further elaboration of multifunctional compounds as often encountered in natural products. This trend is also obvious from sugar metal carbenes that upon 0-deprotection can be modified into amphiphilic organometallics revealing a promising supramolecular chemistry. 

Barluenga, J. Santamaria, M. Tomas, Chem. Rev. 2004, 104, 2259 (b) K.H. Dotz (ed.) Metal Carbenes in Organic Synthesis, Top. Organomet. Chem. 13, Springer-Ver-lag, Berlin Heidelberg 2004  

4 (a) J. Barluenga, P. Barrio, LA. Lopez, M. Tomas, S. Garcia-Granada, 

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Scheme 11.68 Synthesis of amphiphilic sugar metal carbenes as organometallic gelators.

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