Seeing Cyanostars

High yield, one-pot reactions for macrocycle synthesis are rare. So chemists at Indiana University Bloomington have surprised everyone, including themselves, by easily producing a spectacular new star-shaped cyclic macromolecule, in 10-gram batches (1). According to Amar Flood, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and corresponding author on the paper, “We performed computer modeling prior to the synthesis – and hoped that the carbonate base might act as a template as much as a catalyst (but) we did not expect such a remarkable yield”.