Reversible mechanical protection: building a 3D “suit” around a T-shaped benzimidazole axle† †Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Synthetic details and full characterisation of all new compounds. CCDC 1533271 and 1533272. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format see DOI: 10.1039/c7sc00790f Click here for additional data file. Click here for additional data file.

The T-shaped benzimidazolium/crown ether recognition motif was used to prepare suit[1]anes. These novel mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) were fully characterized by H and C NMR spectroscopy, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, UV-vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. By conversion to a suit [1]ane, a simple benzimidazole was shown to be protected from deprotonation by strong base. Moreover, it was demonstrated that this unique three-dimensional encapsulation can be made reversible, thus introducing the concept of “reversible mechanical protection”; a protecting methodology that may have potential applications in synthetic organic chemistry and the design of molecular machinery.