A rapid and effective synthetic route to functional cuboctahedron nanospheres

Abstract Multiferrocenyl and multiadamantyl cuboctahedron nanospheres were synthesized via rapid self-assembly reactions of twelve 90° PdII-containing compounds and twenty-four 120° organic bidentate N-ligands in acetone solution. The selected self-assembly reaction and corresponding solvent were demonstrated to be effective and simple in the preparation of self-assembled nanospheres. DOSY NMR spectroscopy, AFM images and theoretical calculations confirmed the formation of cuboctahedron complexes with the size of 4–5 ​nm. Multifunctional molecular self-assembly processes offer considerable synthetic advantages including significantly fewer steps, fast and facile formation of final desirable products, and will lead to a new multifunctionality platform for cuboctahedron complexes.