Kinetic Stabilities and Exchange Dynamics of Water-Soluble Bis-Formamide Caviplexes Studied Using Diffusion-Ordered NMR Spectroscopy (DOSY)

A deep cavitand binds long-chain trans,trans- and trans,cis-bis-formamide isomers in water solution giving a pair of caviplexes in a ca. 60:40 ratio. Both caviplexes display in/out guest exchange dynamics that are slow on the ¹H NMR chemical shift timescale, but fast on the EXSY timescale. We apply diffusion-ordered NMR spectroscopy (DOSY) to characterize the caviplexes. On the diffusion timescale, the guest in/out exchange processes feature intermediate dynamics allowing the assessment of their kinetic stabilities. We found that the trans,cis-bis-formamide isomers form kinetically more stable caviplexes than the trans,trans-counterparts. We also show that the kinetic stabilities of the bis-formamide caviplexes relate well with their relative thermodynamic stabilities. Fortunately, the tuning of the DOSY parameters allowed the observation of the exchange dynamics as slow processes on the experiment timescale.