Few would say that the construction of multiple nano-engineered cavities for the immobilization of catalytically active transition metals was a non-trivial task. We are talking clever technology here. And appropriately perhaps, such is the domain of Junior Professor Dr. Guido Clever (of the Inorganic Chemistry Dept., Göttingen University, Germany) who has his own laboratory at the university, aptly named ‘The Clever Lab’.
Here’s a graphic example of the lab’s work :
“Molecular cages and capsules provide nanoscopic environments which can be used as the smallest imaginable reaction flasks. Immobilization of catalytically active entities such as transition metals inside these engineered cavities is envisioned to lead to a promising new class of catalysts on the long way to artificial systems with enzyme-like substrate specificity, selectivity and turn-over.”
More Clever stuff: A walnut-shaped supramolecular knot that ties itself!