Time Dependent Structural Evolution of Porous Organic Cage CC3

Jan 16, 2018 - The flexible nature of the CC3 crystals together with these changes in interplanar spacings suggest different degrees of packing of CC3...
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Time Dependent Structural Evolution of Porous Organic Cage CC3 Jolie Lucero, Sameh K. Elsaidi, Ryther Anderson, Ting Wu, Diego Gomez Gauldron, Praveen K. Thallapally, and Moises A Carreon Cryst. Growth Des., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/acs.cgd.7b01405 • Publication Date (Web): 16 Jan 2018 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on January 16, 2018

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Time Dependent Structural Evolution of Porous Organic Cage CC3 Jolie Lucero1, Sameh K. Elsaidi2, Ryther Anderson1, Ting Wu1, Diego A. Gómez-Gualdrón1, Praveen K. Thallapally2*, Moises A. Carreon1*. 1

Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO

80401 United States 2

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352 United States

* Corresponding authors: [email protected] ; [email protected]

KEYWORDS: Porous Organic cages, structural evolution, gas adsorption

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ABSTRACT. Herein we followed the structural evolution of a prototypical type of porous organic cage, CC3 as a function of synthesis time. Three distinctive crystal formation stages were identified: at short synthesis times, a rapid crystal growth stage in which amorphous agglomerates transformed into larger irregular particles was observed. At intermediate synthesis times, a decrease in crystal size over time was observed presumably due to crystal fragmentation, redissolution and/or homogeneous nucleation. Finally, at longer synthesis times, a regrowth process was observed in which particles coalesced through Ostwald ripening leading to a continuous increase in crystal size. Molecular simulation studies, based on the construction of in silico CC3 models and simulation of XRD patterns and nitrogen isotherms, confirm the samples at different synthesis times to be a mixture of CC3α and CC3-amorphous phases. The CC3α phase is found to contract at different synthesis times, and the amorphous phase is found to essentially disappear at the longest synthesis time. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide adsorption properties of these CC3 phases were evaluated, and were highly dependent on synthesis time.

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INTRODUCTION Porous organic cages (POCs)

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have emerged as a novel type of crystalline microporous

materials which combine highly desirable properties, such as uniform micropores, high surface areas, and thermal and chemical stability 6, making them highly appealing candidates for diverse functional applications. The unique structure of POCs and their distinctive solid state molecular packing clearly differentiate them from other porous materials, such as zeolites, metal organic frameworks, porous polymers, and carbon molecular sieves. POCs consist of covalently bonded organic cages that can assemble into crystalline microporous materials displaying threedimensional connectivity and uniform pore size.1,2 Typically, these POCs are synthesized via [4+6] cycloimination reactions.1-3 Depending on the amine and trialdehyde employed, different cages can be formed. CC3 is the most studied prototypical type of POC.1-6 CC3 is formed by the coordination of 1,3,5-triformylbenzene with trans-1,2-diaminocyclohexane, forming a porous crystalline structure with unimodal limiting pore size of ~3.6 Ǻ. Among other functional applications, CC3 has been used for separation of mesitylene from 4-ethyl toluene,7 separation of rare gases, including Xe and Kr 4, sulfur hexafluoride separation 5, gas chromatography separations involving chiral alcohols 8, as membrane for the separation of several binary gas mixtures

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as proton conductor 9, and as a noble metal catalytic support.10 A fundamental

understanding on the structural evolution of POCs is highly important in order to improve their structural, textural and morphological properties. Herein, we report the structural evolution of CC3 as a function of synthesis time. Interestingly, CC3 evolved as a combination of solid phases, whose proportion varied with synthesis time. This POC also experienced a synthesis-time dependent “framework expansion-contraction.” The N2 and CO2 adsorption properties of CC3 materials at different synthesis times were evaluated.

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EXPERIMENTAL AND METHODS 1. Synthesis of CC3 crystals CC3 crystals was synthesized similarly to previous work by Cooper’s group.4 First, dichloromethane (DCM, 3 mL) was added slowly to 0.1 g of solid 1,3,5-triformylbenzene (TFB) (Acros, 98%) to prevent mixing, followed by trifluoroacetic acid (Sigma, 99%) (10 µL) for imine bond formation catalysis. A separate solution made of 0.1 g of (±)-trans-1,2-diaminocyclohexane (Sigma, 99%) in 3 mL of DCM was added slowly to the TFB solution to prevent mixing. The reaction was covered and allowed to react at room temperature for a specified amount of time (8, 18, 30, 45, 60, 99, 120, 360 hours). At the specified time point, a 95 % ethanol / 5% DCM solution was added to the reaction and then centrifuged to afford the product. This process was repeated 2-3 times for washing, and then dried overnight at 80 °C. 2. Structural and Morphological Characterization of CC3 crystals Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) was performed on each crystal sample using an X’Pert PRO MPD X-Ray Diffraction System operated at 30 kV and 25 mA with Cu Kα1 radiation (λ=1.54059). Morphological characterization was performed on a JEOL JSM-7000F scanning electron microscope operated at an accelerating voltage between 8-20 kV. 3. Adsorption experiments All adsorption experiments were performed using an automatic gas sorption analyzer (Quantachrome Autosorb IQ, Quantachrome Instruments, Boynton Beach, FL). In each experiment, the solid CC3 sample was loaded prior activation. The sample was activated at 100 °C under dynamic pressure for 12 hours and then brought to the adsorption temperature. 4. Computational methods

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The simulated XRD patterns for CC3α and CC3β (Figure S1) were obtained using the Reflex module of Materials Studio.11 The simulations were based on experimental crystallographic structures obtained from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). 12 The CSD reference codes for CC3α and CC3β were CAHTAI and PUDXES02, respectively. The Crystal Builder module of Materials Studio was also used to manually eliminate crystallographic disorder (by removing identified “duplicate” atoms) and solvent molecules. To investigate the hypothesized expansion/contraction phenomena in CC3, two strategies were followed: For type I expansion/contraction, the CC3α (or CC3β) unit cell was isotropically scaled by expanding or contracting all interatomic distances (i.e. altering all bond lengths) (Figure S2). For type II, no bond length was altered, but rather the unit cell was scaled by isotropically increasing or decreasing the distances between the cage centers of mass (Figure S2). Expansion/contraction was within 7% of the structure originally obtained from the CSD. The structures generated in Materials Studio covered the above expansion/contraction range using a 1% “step.” The simulated XRD patterns on all in silico structures were compared individually to the experimental patterns to determine the CC3 phase, and the most likely type and amount of expansion/contraction corresponding to each experiment. Additionally, an in silico pseudoamorphous CC3 model was created to estimate the influence of disordered cage packing on measured properties of the synthesized samples such as BET area. The initial model was created by packing 24 CC3 cages into a 45 x 45 x 45 Å box using Packmol.13 The resulting structure was then used as input for a 50-ns molecular dynamics (MD) simulation in the NPT ensemble using the simulation code LAMMPS.14 The individual cages were treated as rigid, and a Lennard-Jones 12-6 potential was used to describe interactions between atoms on different cages according to the Universal Force Field (UFF). 15 The MD simulation used a 1.0 fs time step with the velocity

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Verlet algorithm to integrate the equations of motion, and a Nosé-Hoover thermostat (parameter: 100 fs) and barostat (parameter: 1000 fs) to keep the system at 298 K and 1 atm.14 The final configuration was then optimized within 10-4 kcal mol-1 and 10-6 kcal mol-1Ǻ-1 energy and force cutoffs, respectively, using a conjugate gradient algorithm and only constraining the unit cell shape to remain unchanged. Simulated N2 isotherms were calculated using grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) simulations in RASPA.16 The N2 fugacity was calculated using the PengRobinson equation of state. Intermolecular interactions were according to the TraPPE model for N2 17, and UFF

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for CC3 atoms. Lorentz-Berthelot mixing rules were used to describe cage-

cage interactions in MD simulations and cage-N2 interactions in MC simulations. From simulated (and experimental) isotherms, BET areas were calculated using the required four consistency criteria as discussed in detail elsewhere.18 Figure S3 shows the N2 isotherms and BET equation for each experimental and simulated material.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Figure 1 shows the XRD patterns of CC3 crystals as a function of synthesis time. The XRD patterns correspond to the typical topology of CC3 crystals. However, there is clearly a XRD peak displacement as a function of synthesis time, that may be related to small changes in the unit cell volume.19 The samples synthesized at 8 h and 30 h show similar positions for their corresponding XRD patterns. However, for the samples synthesized at 60 h and 99 h an evident XRD displacement to higher 2 theta angles indicates a decrease in the interplanar spacing. Interestingly, for longer synthesis times (120 h and 360 h) there is a shift in XRD peaks to lower two theta angles indicating an increase in interplanar spacings. The flexible nature of the CC3 crystals together with these changes in interplanar spacings suggest different degrees of packing of CC3, as well a contraction-expansion within this porous organic cage. To elucidate the CC3

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phase observed in the experiments and the nature of the contraction-expansion, we compared experimental patterns with simulated XRD patterns on in silico structures of CC3α and CC3β, the two phases of CC3 observed in previous work

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, with different degrees of expansions (see

Methods section). The comparison conclusively rules out the presence of CC3β in the experiment based on the pronounced mismatch between CC3β simulated pattern (Figure S1) and the experimental ones. The presence of the CC3α phase in all experiments, on the other hand, is confirmed by the excellent matching between simulated CC3α patterns and the experimental ones, where the pattern shifting obtained with the different expanded/contracted in silico CC3α models correspond well with the shift observed in the experimental patterns corresponding to different crystallization times (especially, for the 60-, 99- and 120-h samples). The pattern simulated on CC3α contracted by 2% from the original CSD structure overlaps well with the 30-, and 360-h samples, which indicates that these samples agree well with the previously reported CC3 samples.20 On the other hand, the measured patterns for the 60, 99 and 120 h samples agree much better with the simulated patterns on the in silico CC3 models with 3%, 7% and 5% contraction (blue patterns), respectively, indicating the contraction of the CC3α unit cell in the experiments. From the comparison of the simulated and experimental patterns, it is not entirely clear whether the observed contraction of the CC3α phase is of type I (contraction of cage bonds) or of type II (contraction of spacing between cages). Both types of expansion result in the same degree of peak shifting. However, type I contraction results in XRD patterns with different relative peak intensities than those produced from type II contraction (Figure S4). Since the amorphous phase does not have a distinctive pattern, its presence in the experiment cannot be determined solely on the basis of PXRD patterns.

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Figure 1. Comparison of simulated XRD patterns with experimentally collected patterns in CC3 crystals synthesized at (a) 8 h, (b) 30 h, (c) 60 h, (d) 99 h, (e) 120 h, and (f) 360 h. Black: experimental patterns. Blue: simulated pattern on type I-contracted CC3α models. 2% for (a), (b) and (f), 3% for (c), 7% for (d), and 5% for (e). To complement the XRD experiments, the structural evolution of CC3 crystals was followed by SEM, as shown in Figure 2. At 8 h, CC3 crystals displayed irregular ~1.9 µm size particles. This synthesis time was not enough to form well crystalline faceted particles. At 18 h, crystals rapidly grew to ~14 µm. Although these crystals displayed greater degree of faceting, they showed mostly irregular shapes.

Longer synthesis times, led to octahedral shapes (i.e. the typical

morphology of CC3). At 30 h, 45 h, and 60 h the crystal size decreased to 4.2 µ, ~ 2.0 µm, and 1.1 µm, respectively. For the latter, a narrow size distribution was observed. From this point on, the crystal size increased to 2.2 µm, 3.8 µm, and 5.5 µm for synthesis times corresponding to 99 h, 120 h, and 360 h, respectively. From these SEM images, it can be seen that CC3 crystals synthesized at 120 and 360 h displayed highly crystalline/faceted octahedral shapes.

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Figure 3 shows the average crystal sizes as a function of synthesis time. Three distinctive crystal formation regimes can be suggested based on crystal size analysis. In the first regime, a rapid crystal growth from 8 h to 18 h takes place. Some of the amorphous agglomerates (8 h) densify and transform into larger irregular crystals (18 h). In the second regime (from 18 h to 60 h), there is an intermediate stage in which crystal size decreases gradually with time. The crystal size decrease may be related to: (i) crystal fragmentation, (ii) crystal dissolution, and/or (iii) homogeneous nucleation of new crystals from solution. Representative SEM pictures for the sample synthesized at 18 h (Figure 2b, and Figure S5), indicates that there is fragmentation of larger crystals leading to smaller crystal sizes. During this fragmentation event, crystals detach from larger crystals. Specifically, regular hexagonal voids left by fragmented crystals with comparable sizes of those crystals synthesized at 30 h may explain (at least in part) the decrease in crystal size. In addition, it is likely that the decrease in crystal size in this regime will be due to redissolution of larger crystals into smaller ones. Finally, homogeneous nucleation

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from the

parent liquid phase may lead to the formation of small crystals with narrow size distribution. Finally, in the last regime, there is a regrowth stage (from 60 h to 360 h) in which there is a progressive increase in crystals size as a function of synthesis time. Ostwald ripening mechanism 22

in which small crystals disappear at expense of growing larger crystals which are favored

energetically is likely responsible for this continuous crystal growth. Ostwald ripening effect has been observed in other microporous crystals including zeolitic imidazolate frameworks. 23-26

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Figure 2. Representative SEM images of CC3 crystals synthesized at (a) 8 h, (b) 18 h, (c) 30 h, (d) 45 h, (e) 60 h, (f) 99 h, (g) 120 h, and (h) 360 h.

Figure 3. CC3 crystal size as a function of synthesis time

As shown in Figure 4, the permanent porosity of CC3 samples were confirmed by collecting N2 adsorption isotherms at 77 K which revealed Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) areas of 701, 658, 618, 692, 703, and 519 m2/g for CC3 samples synthesized at reaction time of 8 h, 30 h, 60 h, 99 h, 120 h and 360 h, respectively. It should be noted that a meaningful comparison of these BET areas to characterize the materials needs to follow the application of four consistency criteria.18 These BET areas are within the range of reported BET areas for the polymorph CC3α and amorphous CC3 phases.

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The lowest BET area corresponded to the sample synthesized at the

longest synthesis time (360 h). This value is in good agreement with the simulated BET area for CC3α (2% contraction), which was 523 m2/g (Figure 4). This is consistent with the overall agreement between the simulated (on CC3α) and measured isotherms (on 360 h sample). Since other samples with different synthesis times present BET areas notably higher than the simulated ACS Paragon 11 Plus Environment

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one for the perfect CC3α crystal, we conclude that the 360 h sample is the most crystalline one, which seems to be consistent with the SEM images. The higher BET areas of all other samples seem to suggest the coexistence of CC3α with an amorphous phase in the samples. To confirm that the presence of the amorphous phase is consistent with theoretical models, we calculated the BET area from a simulated N2 isotherm on a pseudo-amorphous in silico model of CC3 (Section 4). The main characteristic of this model is the creation of additional porosity besides the intrinsic porosity of the CC3α cages. The simulated BET area in pseudo-amorphous CC3 model was 1832 m2/g, indicating that higher BET area was the result of the inefficient packing of the CC3 cages in the amorphous material (Figure 5b) relative to the α phase (Figure 5a). The inefficient packing reduces the density of the material, and creates “gaps” among the cages creates new adsorption sites for nitrogen not available in α phase. The obtained BET areas for our CC3-amorphous model are consistent with BET areas obtained from simulated isotherms on amorphous models proposed by Jiang et al.27 Thus, although the presence of the amorphous phase in the samples was not clear from XRD patterns, is clearly suggested by the relative values of calculated BET areas. Note that the simulation on the pseudoamorphous model (Figure 5b) would provide the values for a pure amorphous phase. The saturation loadings and BET areas measured in the samples for synthesis time < 360 h are intermediate values between the simulated values for CC3α and pseudoamorphous CC3, which indicates the synthesized samples to be a mixture of the two phases. Hasell et al

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hypothesized that the increase in surface area in racemic and quasi-racemic CC3

particles is related to a reduction in crystallinity. In this report, it was suggested that the increase in surface areas arised from a reduction in long range order leading to extra extrinsic microporosity between the CC3 cages. In our case, the degree of crystallinity increased with

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synthesis time. Specifically, as crystallinity increased the concentration of amorphous phases (disordered packing) decreased

Figure 4. Experimental Nitrogen isotherms at 77 K (solid lines) for CC3 samples obtained at different synthesis times and comparison to simulated isotherms (dashed lines).

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Figure 5. In silico structural models for CC3α and amorphous CC3. For clarity, hydrogen atoms are omitted and each individual POC is colored differently. These structures were used in XRD pattern and nitrogen adsorption simulations. A) CC3α structure used in XRD patterns and nitrogen adsorption simulations. B) Pseudo-amorphous structure.

Single component CO2 adsorption isotherms were collected at 298 K and 278 K from 0-1 atm for all synthesized CC3 samples at different reaction times. The adsorption isotherms at 1 atm (760 Torr) and 298 K revealed CO2 uptakes of 54, 45, 47, 48, 52 and 32 cm3/g, for CC3 samples synthesized at reaction time of 8 h, 30 h, 60 h, 99 h, 120 h and 360 h, respectively, whereas, the corresponding values at 278 K were found to be 97, 69, 77, 61, 63 and 38 cm3/g, respectively (Figure 6). As expected, the CO2 uptakes decreased with increasing temperature. For both studied temperatures, the highest CO2 uptake was observed for the 8-h synthesized sample, while the lowest uptake was observed for the 360-h synthesized sample. This is in well agreement with the presence of high concentration of amorphous phases (sample synthesized at 8 h) in which higher gas uptake is taking place, vs the well crystallized CC3α phase (sample synthesized at 360 h) in which lower gas uptake is observed. ACS Paragon 14 Plus Environment

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Figure 6. Single component CO2 adsorption isotherms collected at (a) 298 K and (b) 278 K for CC3 samples synthesized at different reaction time.

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CONCLUSIONS The crystal evolution of a prototypical type of porous organic cage, CC3 as a function of synthesis time is demonstrated. We identified three different crystal formation stages for CC3: (i) rapid crystal growth stage, which was favored at short synthesis times. At this stage, amorphous agglomerates transformed into larger irregular particles. (ii) intermediate stage in which crystal size decreased as a function of synthesis time. This behavior was related to crystal fragmentation, crystal redissolution and or homogeneous nucleation. (iii) regrowth stage (favored at longer synthesis times), in which crystals coalesced through Ostwald ripening leading to a continuous crystal size increase. Molecular simulation studies, based on the construction of in silico CC3 models and simulation of XRD patterns and nitrogen isotherms, confirm the samples at different synthesis times to be a mixture of CC3α and CC3-amorphous phases. The CC3α phase is found to contract at different synthesis times, and the amorphous phase if found to essentially disappear at the longest synthesis time. Adsorption properties of the resultant CC3 phases for CO2 and N2 were highly dependent on synthesis time. ASSOCIATED CONTENT Supporting Information Additional SEM images of CC3 crystals. Comparison simulated patterns for CC3β models versus experimental ones. Additional comparison of simulated patterns for CC3α versus experimental ones at high reflection angle. Details on BET area calculations. CIFs for the CC3 in silico models used in this work. This information is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org/

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AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Authors Praveen Thallapally [email protected]; Moises Carreon [email protected]

Author Contributions M.A.C. conceived the project and designed the experiments. J.L. carried out the synthesis and characterization of CC3. T.W. assisted in SEM experiments. S.K.E. carried out the adsorption experiments under the supervision of P.K.T.. R.A. performed all simulations under supervision by D.A.G.-G. The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript. Funding Sources Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) under Grant No. DENE0008429. Start-up funds from Colorado School of Mines. Notes The authors declare no competing financial interests. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS M.A.C. and P.K.T. gratefully thanks the Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) under Grant No. DE-NE0008429 for financial support. PKT thanks the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), DOE/BES/Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering (Award No. KC020105-FWP12152). Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is a multiprogram national laboratory operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.

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D.A.G.-G. gratefully thanks Colorado School of Mines for start-up funds. Molecular simulations were made possible by the supercomputer cluster Mio at Colorado School of Mines. REFERENCES [1] Tozawa,T.; Jones, J.T.A.; Swamy, S.I.; Jiang, S.; Adams, D.J.; Shakespeare, S.; Clowes, R.; Bradshaw, D.; Hasell, T.; Chong, S.Y.; Tang, C.; Thompson, S.; Parker, J.; Trewin, A.; Bacsa, J.; Slawin, A.M.Z.; Steiner, A.; Cooper. A.I. Porous Organic Cages Nat. Mater. 2009, 8, 973-978. [2] Jones, J.T.A.; Hasell, T.; Wu, X.; Bacsa, J.; Jelfs, K.E.; Schmidtmann, M.; Chong, S.Y.; Adams, D.J.; Trewin, A.; Schiffman, F.; Cora, F.; Slater, B.; Steiner, A.; Day, G.M.; Cooper, A.I. Modular and Predictable Assembly of Porous Organic Molecular Crystals. Nature 2011, 474, 367. [3] Song, Q.; Jiang, S.; Hasell, T.; Liu, M.; Sun, S.; Cheetham, A.K.; Sivaniah, E.; Cooper, A.I. Porous Organic Cage Thin Films and Molecular Sieving Membranes. Adv. Mater. 2016, 28, 2629-2637. [4] Chen, L.; Reiss, P.S.; Chong, S.Y.; Holden, D.; Jelfs, K.E.; Hasell, T.; Little, M.A.; Kewley, A.; Briggs, M.E.; Stephenson, A.; Thomas, K.M.; Armstrong, J.A.; Bell, J.; Busto, J.; Noel, R.; Liu, J.; Strachan, D.M.; Thallapally, P.K.; Cooper, A.I. Separation of Rare Gases and Chiral Molecules by Selective Binding in Porous Organic Cages. Nat. Mater. 2014, 13, 954-960. [5] Hasell, T.; Miklitz, M.; Stephenson, A.; Little, M.A.; Chong, S.Y.; Clowes, R.; Chen, L.; Holden, D.; Tribello, G.A.; Jelfs, K.E.; Cooper, A.I. Porous Organic Cages for Sulfur Hexafluoride Separation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 1653-1659. [6] Liu, M.; Little, M.A.; Jelfs, K.E.; Jones, J.T.A.; Schmidtmann, M.; Chong, S.Y.; Hasell, T.; Cooper, A.I. Acid- and Base-Stable Porous Organic Cages: Shape Persistence and pH Stability via Post-synthetic “Tying” of a Flexible Amine Cage. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 7583-7586.

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Synthesis time

CC3 pseudoamorphic

CC3ߙ

The crystal evolution of a prototypical type of porous organic cage, CC3 as a function of synthesis time is demonstrated through experiments and molecular simulations studies.

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