The subgroup „nanostructures“ has a great interest in the synthesis of novel organic building blocks for the formation of supramolecular networks via self assembly. Over the past few years, the importance of supramolecular assemblies increased significantly, which is illustrated by the impressive and still rapidly increasing number of publications in this field of research. However, when studying previous work on this field, one will notice that most examples are limited to achiral substrates. Within our group we want to overcome this limitation and prepare chiral networks.
The best known application of highly porous structures is located in gas storage. Here, extraordinary pure organic networks which consist exclusively of light elements have a great application potential, in particular in the automobile industry. Porous materials are also widely used in opto-electronics as well as in asymmetric catalysis. New applications like the separation of racemic gases are currently examined.
Based on trityl moieties, novel organic building blocks have been prepared and structurally investigated. Substituted hexaphenyl-p-xylene (1,4-ditritylbenzene) as well as extended analogues thereof were prepared. Furthermore, a new family based on a 1,3,5-tritritylbenzene motif, connecting three trityl groups through a formal mesitylene unit, was developed. Both families were further converted through six- and nine-fold substitution reactions, respectively, to yield potent molecular building blocks for supramolecular assemblies (Figure 1).

The Cluster of Excellence 3DMM2O (3D Matter Made to Order) deals with all scales of 3D printing ("additive manufacturing"), from the nanometer to the centimeter range. Our goal is to be able to print more accurately, faster and more on a technological level, while the manufactured systems are to serve as metamaterials, optical/electronic systems and scaffolding for cell culture for the production of artificial cell organelles. With its many years of experience in the field of materials, the Bräse working group contributes to the synthesis of new building blocks for 3D printing, especially in area A of the cluster.