Porous dipeptide crystals as volatile-drug vessels

Porous crystalline dipeptides absorb, reversibly from the gas phase, a series of volatile fluorinated ethers in use as anesthetics. Their vapor pressure was considerably reduced, with favorable guest capture and release. Variable channel sizes were customized for selective sorption and pressure thresholds were observed in the narrowest pores. 1H, 13C and 19F MAS NMR coupled with ab initio conformational analysis and grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations highlight the guest loading and arrangement adopted in the congruent nanochannels, suggesting how the anesthetics can accommodate in biochemical receptors.