The work towards the scaffold complexes was divided into three parts: Monomer synthesis, Oligomer synthesis, and metalation. As the oligomer scaffold designs required the development of several new monomers an important initial focus was on obtaining these units. Significant synthetic work went into the optimization and scaling up of the reactions for these monomers. New synthetic protocols for incorporating the imidazole and histamine units into quinoline based monomers were developed that allowed these monomers to be obtained on the gram quantities needed for the oligomer synthesis. Additionally, a short and efficient route to a 2,7-diamino-1,8-diazaanthracene monomer, used as a linker between the quinolines, was developed. Once the monomers were obtained, their incorporation into the oligomer scaffolds was performed. Selectively monoprotecting the 2,7-diamino-1,8-diazaanthracene unit to avoid side reactions proved challenging, giving only low yields for the desired product. Thus, procedures were optimized for coupling of the quinoline acids directly to the unprotected diamino unit. These proved efficient and gave a more direct route to the coupled products. Despite the simplicity of the amide coupling steps, several challenges were encountered. Notably, deprotection of the trityl and boc groups in the final scaffold required multiple steps in order to ensure sufficient purity of the final scaffold. Finally, metalation of the obtained scaffolds was performed with several copper salts and studied by UV-vis spectroscopy. Depending on the copper source, the resulting spectra show an absorbance band between 600-700 nm, similar to what is reported for LPMO. Research is still ongoing and focuses on the full structural characterization of the ligands and complexes, as well as, testing of their reactivity for the oxidative degradation of model saccharide substrates.
