Cavity-containing materials based upon resorcin[4]arenes by discovery and design

Strategies for the design of multimolecular hosts that display recognition properties analogous to those of monomolecular predecessors are described, In particular, the bowl-shaped cavity of a molecular receptor known as reso rcin[4]arene has been elaborated, using hydrogen bonds, for the constructio n of open and closed cavities that accommodate single and multiple guest sp ecies. Both chemical and geometric considerations derived from these studie s have led us to identify host frameworks, based upon the five Platonic and 13 Archimedean solids, which have yet to be synthesized or discovered and we propose such systems as targets in chemical synthesis, (C) 2000 Academic Press.