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Illustration of stepwise progesterone separation using cage1. A mixture of progesterone, mestranol, cholesterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol was initially introduced to a solution of cagetrans-1in CD3CN (Step 1). The cage selectively encapsulated progesterone, leaving the other steroids free in solution. Added cyclopentane (Step 2) extracted mestranol, cholesterol and 7-dehydrocholesterol, which were then removed in cyclopentane solution (Step 3). Irradiation at 350 nm resulted in the release of progesterone (Step 4), which was then purified through cyclopentane extraction. Illumination at 500 nm (Step 5) enabledtrans-1to be recycled for further use.

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