Thiacalixarenes

An overview of the growth of the chemistry of thiacalixarenes by comparison with that of the methylene-bridged counterparts, in which stress will be put on their reactivity, molecular recognition ability and potential for host molecules, is presented. The findings reveal that thiacalix[n]arenes and their derivatives have high affinity to various metal ions by virtue of the coordination of the bridging groups which frequently assemble to form multinuclear complexes using many ligating sites and are very hopeful candidates for obtaining high-performance catalysts for organic transformation.