In our recent publication, we report the first example of using reversible carbon–carbon bond-based radical recombination for the synthesis of porous organic cages with intrinsically responsive behaviour. The work introduces radical-based dynamic covalent chemistry as a new strategy for constructing adaptive supramolecular materials, enabling the formation of discrete cage architectures with tuneable topology, gas sorption properties, chromism, and self-healing behaviour.

Congratulations to Yannic on this achievement!

This study was carried out in close collaboration with the Janiak Group from HHU and the Kawano Group from the Institute of Science, Tokyo, Japan. We are also especially grateful to the Daumann Group for their generous support and access to EPR instrumentation, which was essential for investigating the dynamic radical behaviour of the systems.

The article was published this week in Angewandte Chemie and can be accessed here in English and here in German.