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1. Bridging photochemistry and photomechanics with NMR crystallography: the molecular basis for the macroscopic expansion of an anthracene ester nanorod

   https://doi.org/10.1039/d0sc05118g  

   Chalek, Kevin R.; Dong, Xinning; Tong, Fei; Kudla, Ryan A.; Zhu, Lingyan; Gill, Adam D.; Xu, Wenwen; Yang, Chen; Hartman, Joshua D.; Magalhães, Alviclér; et al (January 2021, Chemical Science)

   null (Ed.)

   Crystals composed of photoreactive molecules represent a new class of photomechanical materials with the potential to generate large forces on fast timescales. An example is the photodimerization of 9- tert -butyl-anthracene ester ( 9TBAE ) in molecular crystal nanorods that leads to an average elongation of 8%. Previous work showed that this expansion results from the formation of a metastable crystalline product. In this article, it is shown how a novel combination of ensemble oriented-crystal solid-state NMR, X-ray diffraction, and first principles computational modeling can be used to establish the absolute unit cell orientations relative to the shape change, revealing the atomic-resolution mechanism for the photomechanical response and enabling the construction of a model that predicts an elongation of 7.4%, in good agreement with the experimental value. According to this model, the nanorod expansion does not result from an overall change in the volume of the unit cell, but rather from an anisotropic rearrangement of the molecular contents. The ability to understand quantitatively how molecular-level photochemistry generates mechanical displacements allows us to predict that the expansion could be tuned from +9% to −9.5% by controlling the initial orientation of the unit cell with respect to the nanorod axis. This application of NMR-assisted crystallography provides a new tool capable of tying the atomic-level structural rearrangement of the reacting molecular species to the mechanical response of a nanostructured sample. 

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2. Effect of halogen substitution on energies and dynamics of reversible photomechanical crystals based on 9-anthracenecarboxylic acid

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D1CE00846C  

   Gately, Thomas J.; Sontising, Watit; Easley, Connor J.; Islam, Imadul; Al-Kaysi, Rabih O.; Beran, Gregory J.; Bardeen, Christopher J. (January 2021, CrystEngComm)

   null (Ed.)

   9-Anthracene carboxylic acid derivatives comprise a family of thermally reversible photomechanical molecular crystals. The photomechanical response relies on a [4 + 4] photodimerization followed by dissociation that occurs on timescales of seconds to minutes. A combined theoretical and experimental investigation is undertaken to better understand how chemical modification of the anthracene core influences energetics of both the isolated molecule and the crystal lattice. We use both density functional theory and dispersion-corrected Moller–Plesset perturbation theory computational methods to establish orbital energies, photodimerization reaction energies, and lattice energies for a set of substituted 9-anthracene carboxylic acid molecules. The calculations reveal that steric interactions play a dominant role in the ability to form photodimers and indicate an energetic threshold of 80–90 kJ per mole for the dimerization reaction. Examination of intermolecular bonding in a subset of fluorinated 9ACs revealed the absence of H⋯F intermolecular bond formation and energy differences that can explain observed trends in the dissociation kinetics and mechanical reset times. Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching experiments shows that the photodimer dissociation kinetics depend on the amount of initial photodimer, preventing a straightforward correlation between halogen atom substitution and dissociation rates using the Bell–Evans–Polanyi principle. The results clarify how molecular structure affects intermolecular interactions and photoreactivity in this family of molecular crystals, but the origin of the complex photodimer dissociation dynamics remains an open question. 

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3. Using light intensity to control reaction kinetics and reversibility in photomechanical crystals

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D0SC03557B  

   Easley, Connor J.; Tong, Fei; Dong, Xinning; Al-Kaysi, Rabih O.; Bardeen, Christopher J. (September 2020, Chemical Science)

   null (Ed.)

   4-Fluoro-9-anthracenecarboxylic acid ( 4F-9AC ) is a thermally reversible (T-type) photomechanical molecular crystal. The photomechanical response is driven by a [4 + 4] photodimerization reaction, while the photodimer dissociation determines the reset time. In this paper, both the chemical kinetics of dimer dissociation (using a microscopic fluorescence-recovery-after-photobleaching experiment) and mechanical reset dynamics (by imaging bending microneedles) for single 4F-9AC crystals are measured. The dissociation kinetics depend strongly on the initial concentration of photodimer, slowing down and becoming nonexponential at high dimer concentrations. This dose-dependent behavior is also observed in the mechanical response of bending microneedles. A new feature in the photomechanical behavior is identified: the ability of a very weak control beam to suppress dimer dissociation after large initial dimer conversions. This phenomenon provides a way to optically control the mechanical response of this photomechanical crystal. To gain physical insight into the origin of the nonexponential recovery curves, the experimental results are analyzed in terms of a standard first-order kinetic model and a nonlinear Finke–Watzky (FW) model. The FW model can qualitatively reproduce the transition from exponential to sigmoidal recovery with larger initial conversions, but neither model can reproduce the suppression of the recovery in the presence of a weak holding beam. These results highlight the need for more sophisticated theories to describe cooperative phenomena in solid-state crystalline reactions, as well as demonstrating how this behavior could lead to new properties and/or improved performance in photomechanical materials. 

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4. Solid‐State [4+4] Cycloaddition and Cycloreversion with Use of Unpaired Hydrogen‐Bond Donors to Achieve Solvatomorphism and Stabilization

   https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202302482  

   George, III, Gary_C; Hutchins, Kristin_M (October 2023, Chemistry – A European Journal)

   Abstract The crystal structure of a commercially available anthracene derivative, anthracene‐9‐thiocarboxamide, is reported here for the first time. The compound undergoes a [4+4] cycloaddition in the solid state to afford facile synthesis of the cycloadduct (CA). The cycloaddition is also reversible in the solid state using heat or mechanical force. Due to the presence of unpaired, strong hydrogen‐bond donor atoms on the CA, significant solvatomorphism is achieved, and components of the solvatomorphs self‐assemble into four different classes of supramolecular structures. The CA readily crystallizes with a variety of structurally‐diverse solvents including those containing oxygen‐, nitrogen‐, or pi‐acceptors. Some of the solvents the CA crystallized with include thiophene, benzene, and the three xylene isomers; thus, the CA was employed in industrially‐relevant solvent separation. However, in competition studies, the CA did not exhibit selectivity. Lastly, it is demonstrated that the CA crystallizes with vinyl‐containing monomers and is currently the only compound that crystallizes with both widely used monomers 4‐vinylpyridine and styrene. Solid‐state complexation of the CA with the monomers affords over a 50 °C increase in the monomer's thermal stabilities. The strategy of designing molecules with unused donors can be applied to achieve separations or volatile liquid stabilization. 

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5. Solid state photodimerization of 9- tert -butyl anthracene ester produces an exceptionally metastable polymorph according to first-principles calculations

   https://doi.org/10.1039/C8CE01985A  

   Beran, Gregory J. (January 2019, CrystEngComm)

   Molecular crystal engineering seeks to tune the material properties by controlling the crystal packing. However, the range of achievable properties is constrained by the limited energy range of polymorphs which can be crystallized. Here, computational modeling highlights that a solid-state crystal-to-crystal chemical reaction in 9- tert -butyl anthracene ester (9TBAE) nanorods [Al-Kaysi et al. , J. Am. Chem. Soc. , 2006, 128 , 15938] imparts “synthetic memory” into the crystal structure that allows reproducible formation of a highly metastable, yet long-lived polymorph. Specifically, whereas the vast majority of known polymorphs exhibit lattice energy differences below 10 kJ mol −1 , the conformational polymorph formed via solid state reaction chemistry lies 14 kJ mol −1 higher in energy than the form grown from solution, according to calculations that combine a dispersion-corrected second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation theory (MP2D) treatment of the monomer and photodimer with a density functional theory treatment (B86bPBE-XDM) of the intermolecular interactions in the crystal. Moreover, the solid-state reaction environment traps a highly unstable intramolecular photodimer conformation which defies the conventional wisdom surrounding conformational polymorphs. These observations suggest that solid-state reaction chemistry represents an under-appreciated strategy for producing polymorphs that would likely be unobtainable otherwise. 

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