Scheme 1. Synthesis of DiKTa-OBuIm and DiKTa-DPA-OBuIm. DiKTa-OBuIm was obtained in three steps (Scheme 1) in 23% overall yield. First, hydrolysis of 1, insitu conversion to the acyl chloride and subsequent Lewis-acid promoted Friedel Crafts acylation reaction produced compound 2, where the AlCl3 was also responsible for the demethylation. Compound 2 was then subjected to monoalkylation with 1,4-dibromobutane in moderate yield, followed by a second alkylation step 1-methylimidazole in very good yield. DiKTa-OBuIm was isolated as its hexafluorophosphate salt following anion metathesis with NH4PF6. DiKTa-DPA-OBuIm was obtained also in three steps at 35% overall yield from compound 4 using a similar synthetic strategy, which itself was synthesized from Br-DiKTa following a Buchwald-Hartwig coupling. Details of the synthesis are found in the Supporting Information. The identity and purity of the molecules were verified using a combination of 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy, high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) (Figures ) and melting point analysis.