Discovery of gigantic molecular nanostructures using a flow reaction array as a search engine

The discovery of gigantic molecular nanostructures like coordination and polyoxometalate clusters is extremely time-consuming since a vast combinatorial space needs to be searched, and even a systematic and exhaustive exploration of the available synthetic parameters relies on a great deal of serendipity. Here we present a synthetic methodology that combines a flow reaction array and algorithmic control to give a chemical ‘real-space’ search engine leading to the discovery and isolation of a range of new molecular nanoclusters based on [Mo2O2S2] 2 þ -based building blocks with either fourfold (C4) or fivefold (C5) symmetry