A Porous Tricyclooxacalixarene Cage Based on Tetraphenylethylene.

A quadrangular prismatic tricyclooxacalixarene cage 1 based on tetraphenylethylene (TPE) was efficiently synthesized by a one-pot S(N)Ar condensation reaction. As a result of the porous internal structure in the solid state, cage 1 exhibited a good CO2 uptake capacity of 12.5 wt% and a high selectivity for CO2 over N2 adsorption of 80 (273 K, 1 bar) with a BET surface area of 432 m(2) g(-1). Formation of cage 1 led to the fluorescence of TPE being switched on in solution. The system was employed as a single-molecule platform to study the mechanism of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) by examining the restriction of intramolecular rotation (RIR).