Design and synthesis of a cavitand pillar for MOFs

In this paper, we report the first example of a tetramethylene bridged cavitand with two distal methylbenzoate legs at the lower rim, adopting a unique and unprecedented equatorial equatorial (ee) configuration both in solution and in the solid state, as confirmed by NMR and single crystal X-ray diffraction. The presence of functional groups, which are potential metal binding sites in the ee configuration, makes these cavitands suitable candidates to be used as pillars in metal-organic frameworks (MOF) as specific molecular recognition units.