Non-covalent synthesis of metallodendrimers

The field of dendrimers has undergone an explosive growth since the first dendritic structures were reported two decades ago. These three-dimensional, highly branched macromolecules have attracted interest from such diverse areas as polymeric, organic, inorganic, biomedical, theoretical, and physical chemistry. Future applications were already hypothesized from the early days of dendrimer research. From an application point of view, the incorporation of a range of metals into the dendritic framework is of particular interest. The resulting metallodendrimers might be applied in fields such as catalysis, sensors, medical diagnosis, light-harvesting devices, and nanoparticles. In this chapter, metallodendrimers are discussed in which the metals are essential for maintaining the dendritic structure. This means that all the dendrimers described have been assembled non-covalently using coordination chemistry. Although this restriction narrows the metallodendrimer field significantly, there is still an enormous variety in the architecture of reported non-covalent metallodendrimers. Where possible, emphasis is placed on the characterization methods and specific behavior of the dendrimers, because characterization is of utmost importance in establishing their often complicated three-dimensional structure. Finally, we have emphasized properties that may lead to future applications.