Hosting various guests including fullerenes and free radicals in versatile organic paramagnetic bTbk open frameworks

The dinitroxide bis(TEMPO) bisketal (bTbk) was shown to crystallize into open frameworks whose structures were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. We show that bTbk can be used as a supramolecular building block for the hosting of a plethora of guests inside the 1D channels of its paramagnetic framework, including other radicals such as TEMPO or 2-azaadamantane-N-oxyl. C60 and C70 were also found to be easily included in this open framework during its crystallization. This resulted in well-defined, nanostructured assemblies of composite radical crystals (bTbk/toluene/C60 or C70) or (bTbk/toluene/TEMPO) by a very simple dissolution/crystallization process with tunable guest content. Selective C60 extraction was also demonstrated directly from fullerene soot.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye