The reversible boronic acid-diol interaction empowers boronic acid receptors' saccharide binding capacities, rendering them a class of lectin mimetic, termed "boronlectins". Boronic acids follow lectin functions not just in being able to bind saccharides, but in multivalent saccharide binding that enhances both affinity and selectivity. For almost a decade, efforts have been made to achieve and improve selectivity for given saccharide targets, most notably glucose, by using properly positioned boronic acids, offering multivalent interactions. Incorporation of several boronic acid groups into a covalent framework or non-covalent assembly of boronic acid are two general methods used to create such smart sensors, of which the latter resembles lectin oligomerisation that affords multivalent saccharide-binding architectures. In this review, we discuss supramolecular selective sensing of saccharides by using simple boronic acids in their aggregate forms, after a brief survey of the general aspects of boronic acid-based saccharide sensing.

Aggregates of an amphiphilic monoboronic acid bearing a hydrophobic pyrene fluorophore were employed for highly modulating, sensitive, and selective ratiometric fluorescent sensing of glucose in aqueous solution. The selectivity for glucose was improved by "knock-out" binding of fructose by phenylboronic acid.

Optical surfaces that can repel both water and oil have much potential for applications in a diverse array of technologies including self-cleaning solar panels, anti-icing windows and windshields for automobiles and aircrafts, low-drag surfaces, and antismudge touch screens. By exploiting a hierarchical geometry made of two-tier nanostructures, primary nanopillars of length scale ∼ 100-200 nm superposed with secondary branching nanostructures made of nanoparticles of length scale ∼ 10-30 nm, we have achieved static contact angles of more than 170° and 160° for water and oil, respectively, while the sliding angles were lower than 4°. At the same time, with respect to the initial flat bare glass, the nanotextured surface presented significantly reduced reflection (<0.5%), increased transmission (93.8% average over the 400 to 700 nm wavelength range), and very low scattering values (about 1% haze). To the authors' knowledge, these are the highest optical performances in conjunction with superomniphobicity reported to date in the literature. The primary nanopillars are monolithically integrated in the glass surface using lithography-free metal dewetting followed by reactive ion etching,1 while the smaller and higher surface area branching structure made of secondary nanoparticles are deposited by the NanoSpray2 combustion chemical vapor deposition (CCVD).