The locations and arrangements of carotenoids at the subcellular level are responsible for their designated functions, which reinforces the necessity of developing methods for constructing carotenoid-based suprastructures beyond the molecular level. Because carotenoids lack the binding sites necessary for controlled interactions, functional structures based on carotenoids are not easily obtained. Here, we show that carotene-based suprastructures were formed via the induction of pillararene through a phase-transfer-mediated host–guest interaction. More importantly, similar to the main component in natural photosynthesis, complexes could be synthesized after chlorophyll was introduced into the carotene-based suprastructure assembly process. Remarkably, compared with molecular carotene or chlorophyll, this synthesized suprastructure exhibits some photocatalytic activity when exposed to light, which can be exploited for photocatalytic reaction studies of energy capture and solar conversion in living organisms.

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are widely applied as tuneable and versatile catalysts for a variety of oxidation reactions in an aqueous/organic twophase system. However, the practical applications of POMs-based biphasic catalysis are hampered by low space-time yields and mass-transport limitation between two layers due to extremely low solubility of the organic reactants in the aqueous phase. Here, we first introduced β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) as an inverse phase transfer agent and a supramolecular nanoreactor to construct a supramolecular POM inorganic− organic hybrid framework (KCl 4 )Na 7 [(β-CD) 3 (SiW 12 O 40 )]•9H 2 O {3CD@SiW 12 } for various oxidation catalyses. In contrast to free CD, Keggin [SiW 12 O 40 ] 4− catalysts, and their mixture, the {3CD@SiW 12 } catalyst, efficiently catalyze oxidation reactions of alcohol, alkene, and thiophene. A comprehensive strategy of experimental, crystallographic, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations elucidates that the catalytic pathway involved three combined aspects of supramolecular recognition, phase transfer property, and POM catalysis. The strategic combination of supramolecular characteristic and POM-based catalysts to fabricate supramolecular POM hybrid materials opens up new economic and green tuning options, thus paving the way to informed catalyst design.

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Lysine-functionalized perylene was used to modify nanoparticles. Due to the benefits from a synergetic effect that originated between the perylene and silver nanoparticles, color-based metal sensor systems were established. At pH ¼ 12.6, Cr 6+ with a concentration of 100 nM could be detected by a color change from deep yellow to orange; after decreasing the pH to 12.0, the detection limit decreased to 2 mM. Interestingly, after further decreasing the pH to 11.0, another kind of metal ion (Cd 2+ ) could be recognized with a detection concentration of 10 mM. At pH ¼ 10.0, Pb 2+ with a concentration of 2 mM could be detected.