Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Stoddart: This will be a new field that will shock the chemistry world

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Enter the new world of molecular nanotopology

This is a field that has not been explored, but now many good things will happen, and many miracles will be performed.

"I have been saying that when the topology of molecular wires and chemical topology enter the dictionary of chemistry, it will definitely shock chemists. Because this is really a very, very fundamental research. I think it must There will be many people willing to join in, and this new field will explode. To some extent, I just renamed this field. Because the concept of molecules is still too big, and what I am talking about is nano-level topology . Therefore, I will call this unexplored new field-molecular nanotopology."

"This will provide more feasibility for the generation of new chemical catalysts and the precise selection of more traditional chemical reactions. Of course, I am just curious about this brand new thing. Because the future is also full of unknowns for me. I don’t know more than others."

On December 12, 2016, Stoddart carefully watched his Nobel Medal when he visited the Nobel Foundation. Figure｜ © Nobel Media AB 2016

In this article, Stoddart traced the origin of topology in the field of chemical molecular science and also made a prospect:

In 1960, Edel Wasserman used the method of statistical synthesis to create the world's first cable hydrocarbon, with its first experimental appearance with mechanical bonds.

The following year, Harry L. Frisch and Wassermann introduced the field of chemical topology into the dictionary of chemistry in a groundbreaking communication.

In this communication, the two defined some topological isomers, including the following, for example: two molecules with the same atom and chemical bond connectivity, but the structure of these two molecules cannot pass through three-dimensional space. Any deformation is converted into each other.

This newsletter, published in 1961, also outlines some possible experimental methods for obtaining molecular knots and links such as solanine. Cetane is a molecule with two or more interlocking ring components. In other words, it is also an example of mechanically interlocked molecules. From the perspective of topology, it is "not mediocre" (Editor's Note: In Mathematics) , The term "banal" is often used for objects with very simple structures, and conversely, "not mediocre" is used to indicate that certain examples, solutions, sentences, or theorems are not easy to prove).

The other most common type of mechanical interlocking molecule is called rotaxane. It consists of a ring worn by a shaft-shaped entity (dumbbell), but the end group (stopper) is too large to pass over. Rotaxane is topologically "trivial" for a simple reason: its components can be dissociated through continuous deformation, which causes the ring to slip off the dumbbell without any chemical bonds breaking or passing through each other.

The mechanical bond in catalane is also a topological bond, but this is not the case in rotaxane. It can be seen that, based on topological considerations, there is a very obvious difference between a cable hydrocarbon and a rotaxane.