Fluorous Nanohosts

The fluorous phase is a third phase orthogonal to the organic and aqueous phases.  It represents a unique environment for studying interactions involved in host-guest chemistry because of strong desolvation and entropic benefits.  Through the introduction of perfluoroalkyl chains, hosts molecules such as resorcinarenes and cavitands, can be made into fluorous molecular receptors (Figure 1).  Due to the selective nature of fluorous liquids, these receptor molecules can be appropriately functionalized to bind guest molecules for selective extraction in a fluorous liquid phase.  A shape-oriented separation based on the fluorous nano-hosts is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The process of a shape-oriented triphasic separation