Building an Autonomous Chemically-Fuelled Rotary Molecular Motor

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Chemically fuelled molecular motors are ubiquitous in nature, autonomously converting energy into work or motion to power biological processes. Synthetic molecular motors hold potential as components in future nanoscale technologies,1 however autonomy remains a challenging aspect of molecular motion to achieve. To date, only one artificial chemically-fuelled motor with this feature has been reported, based on a catenane architecture.2 In this project, we aim to develop biaryl motors capable of unidirectional chemically-fuelled autonomous rotary motion around a single bond. Key to developing an autonomous motor will be the exploration of cyclical chemical reaction networks (CRNs), that is, systems in which opposing, non-microscopically reversible reactions occur concurrently, resulting in the repeated chemical transformation of substrates between two or more states3. It is hoped that, in addition to creating a system capable of autonomous motion, the synthetic simplicity of the proposed motors will make developing applications for these molecular machines more accessible in future. This project will employ synthetic organic chemistry to access the substrates necessary for the development of these chemical reaction networks, as well as a variety of analytical techniques such as NMR labelling and kinetics studies to analyse the dynamic non-equilibrium behaviour of the system and prove continuous rotary motion. Erbas-Cakmak, S.; Leigh, D. A.; McTernan, C. T.; Nussbaumer, A. L., Artificial Molecular Machines. Chem. Rev. 2015, 115 (18), 10081-10206. Wilson, M. R.; Solà, J.; Carlone, A.; Goldup, S. M.; Lebrasseur, N.; Leigh, D. A., Nature 2016, 534 (7606), 235-240. Riess, B.; Grötsch, R. K.; Boekhoven, J., Chem 2020, 6 (3), 552-578.