Abstract
Antimicrobial resistance has been a pressing issue in medical treatment for over twenty years. Metal-organic compounds have shown potential as an additional source of antimicrobial agents. Additionally, preliminary studies have indicated that synthesising host-guest assemblies with existing antimicrobial agents might reinvigorate their antimicrobial properties against strains which had become resistant. Metallosupramolecular self-assembly methods could be used to synthesise suitable architectures to act as hosts for the delivery of existing antimicrobial agents. This thesis describes the synthesis of a family of bis-2 pyridyl 1,2,3 triazole ligands for the self-assembly of [Pd2L2]4+ macrocycles, followed by host-guest studies, of the resulting architectures. The ligands consisted of two bidentate 2 pyridyl 1,2,3 triazole chelates separated by a linker. Several linkers with varying rigidity and length were chosen to elucidate the optimal structural features required for the self-assembly of Pd2L2 macrocycles. Both rigidity and length proved to be important as ligands L5, L6, Lp-xy, and Lm-xy formed macrocycles as the major product while macrocyclic structures could not be resolved when synthesised with longer, more flexible, ligands L3p, and L10. Initial host-guest studies found that model guests such as anthracene and tetrathiafulvalene have a templating effect, driving the self-assembly towards Pd2L¬2 macrocyclic structures.