Transforming Porous Organic Cages into Porous Ionic Liquids via a Supramolecular Complexation Strategy

Abstract Porous liquids are a type of porous materials that engineer permanent porosity into unique flowing liquids, exhibiting promising functionalities for a variety of applications. Here a Type I porous liquid is synthesized by transforming porous organic cages into porous ionic liquids via a supramolecular complexation strategy. Simple physical mixing of 18‐crown‐6 with task‐specific anionic porous organic cages affords a porous ionic liquid with anionic porous organic cages as the anionic parts and 18‐crown‐6/potassium ion complexes as the cationic parts. In contrast, mixing of 15‐crown‐5 and anionic porous organic cages in a 2:1 ratio gives only solids, while the addition of excess 15‐crown‐5 affords a Type II porous liquid. The permanent porosity in the cage‐based porous liquids has been also confirmed by molecular simulation, positron (e + ) annihilation lifetime spectroscopy, and enhanced gas sorption capacity compared with pure crown ethers.