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Recently, polymer mechanochemistry has attracted much scientific interest due to its potential to develop degradable polymers. When the two ends of a polymer chain experience a linear pulling stress, molecular strain builds up, at sufficiently strong force, a bond scission of the weakest covalent bond results. In contrast, bond‐breaking events triggered by conformational stress are much less explored. Here, we discovered that a Zn salen complex would undergo conformational switching upon allosteric complexation with alkanediammonium guests. By controlling the guest chain length, the torsional strain experienced by Zn complex can be modulated to induce bond cleavage with chemical stimulus, and reactivity trend is predicted by conformational analysis derived by DFT calculation. Such strain‐release reactivity by a Zn(salen) complex initiated by guest binding is reminiscent of conformation‐induced reactivity of enzymes to enable chemical events that are otherwise inhibited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pd‐based molecular square Pd4L4 and triangle Pd3L3 represent the molecular ancestors of metal‐coordination polyhedra that have been an integral part of the field for the last 30 years. Conventional solution‐based reactions between cis‐protected Pd ions and 2,2′‐bipyridine exclusively give Pd4L4 and/or Pd3L3 as the sole products. We herein show that, under solvent‐free mechanochemical conditions, the self‐assembly energy landscape can be thermodynamically manipulated to form an elusive cyclic dimer Pd2L2 for the first time. In the absence of solvent, Pd2L2 is indefinitely stable in the solid‐state, but converts rapidly to its thermodynamic products Pd3L3 and Pd4L4 in solution, confirming Pd2L2 as a short‐lived kinetic species in the solution‐based self‐assembly process. Our results highlight how mechanochemistry grants access to a vastly different chemical space than available under conventional solution conditions. This provides a unique opportunity to isolate elusive species in self‐assembly processes that are too reactive to both "see" and "capture". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When chiral compounds with low enantiomeric excess (ee, R:S=m:n) were absorbed into the void of the crystalline sponge (CS), enantiomerically pure [(R)m(S)n] chiral composites were formed, changing the centrosymmetric space group into non‐centrosymmetric one. The absolute configuration of the analyte compounds was elucidated with a reasonable Flack (Parsons) parameter value. This phenomenon is characteristic to the "post‐crystallization" in the pre‐determined CS crystalline lattice, seldom found in common crystallization where the crystalline lattice is defined by an analyte itself. The results highlight the potential of the CS method for absolute configuration determination of low ee samples, an often encountered situation in asymmetric synthesis studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pd‐based molecular square Pd4L4 and triangle Pd3L3 represent the molecular ancestors of metal‐coordination polyhedra that have been an integral part of the field for the last 30 years. Conventional solution‐based reactions between cis‐protected Pd ions and 2,2′‐bipyridine exclusively give Pd4L4 and/or Pd3L3 as the sole products. We herein show that, under solvent‐free mechanochemical conditions, the self‐assembly energy landscape can be thermodynamically manipulated to form an elusive cyclic dimer Pd2L2 for the first time. In the absence of solvent, Pd2L2 is indefinitely stable in the solid‐state, but converts rapidly to its thermodynamic products Pd3L3 and Pd4L4 in solution, confirming Pd2L2 as a short‐lived kinetic species in the solution‐based self‐assembly process. Our results highlight how mechanochemistry grants access to a vastly different chemical space than available under conventional solution conditions. This provides a unique opportunity to isolate elusive species in self‐assembly processes that are too reactive to both "see" and "capture". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]