Cl. Chuang et al., GEOMETRIC CONTROL OF SELECTIVITY IN ALKALI-METAL ION COMPLEXATION BY ACYCLIC N-4-TRIPODAL LIGANDS, Tetrahedron letters, 36(17), 1995, pp. 2909-2912
A simple mass spectrometry experiment established that two acyclic N-4
-tripodal ligands bind lithium ion with surprisingly high selectivity
in a methanol/ water solution of five alkali metal perchlorate salts.
The selectivity was confirmed by a H-1 NMR experiment.