Oligo-β-diketones as versatile ligands for use in metallo-supramolecular chemistry: Recent progress and perspectives

Classical β-diketones have long been demonstrated to be excellent chelating ligands for a wide range of metal ions from across the Periodic Table. More recently, bis- and tris-bidentate derivatives of this ligand class, in which two or three β-diketone domains are linked by a spacer unit, have increasingly been employed in wide-ranging studies that have often resulted in diverse metallosupramolecular architectures that include dinuclear platforms, trinuclear triangles, triple and quadruple helices, tetrahedral cages, polyrotaxanes along with other coordination polymer types. These systems have often been shown to display a range of interesting properties that, for example, include diverse photophysical, magnetic, chiral and/or light switching behaviour. Here we review the major developments in the above area covering the literature from late 2016 through to August 2021.