Supramolecular Chirality in Self‐Assembled Soft Materials: Regulation of Chiral Nanostructures and Chiral Functions

Abstract

Supramolecular chirality, which arises from the nonsymmetric spatial arrangement of components in the self-assembly systems, has gained great attention owing to its relation to the natural biological structures and the possible new functions in advanced materials. During the self-assembling process, both chiral and achiral components are possible to form chiral nanostructures. Therefore, it becomes an important issue how to fabricate these molecular components into chiral nanostructures. Furthermore, once the chiral nanostructure is obtained, will it show new functions that simple component molecule could not? In this research news, we report our recent development in the regulation of chiral nanostructures in soft gels or vesicle materials. We have further developed several new functions pertaining to the soft gel materials, which single chiral molecules could not perform, such as the chiroptical switch, chiral recognition and the asymmetry catalysis.

Supramolecular materials

“…The incorporation of inorganic units is less developed perhaps, 40 but new hybrid liquid crystalline materials can be prepared by combining suitable functional building blocks.…”

“…A remarkable case of the formation of polymorphic 40 nanostructures is that of the platinum(II) complex 2 (Fig. 6).…”

“…The authors went on to show that the PA materials formed using different approaches had 35 different properties in terms of biological cell adhesion and survival. It is therefore clear that careful kinetic control over the assembly of supramolecular materials, which can be understood by detailed characterisation, can have a direct impact on the function and performance of the resulting 40 material. This should not be underestimated when developing supramolecular materials -it is tempting to think of them in the equilibrium state, but very many of them have metastable, kinetic characteristics that mean the precise details of their formation histories will play a significant role in controlling 45 their potential application futures.…”

“…Soft materials comprising molecule-based systems have gradually found applications in all kinds of everyday machines and devices, with supramolecular chemistry playing an increasingly evident role, 1 as it does in natural systems. For the Special Issue celebrating the anniversary of Supramolecular 35 Chemistry, this Tutorial Review will introduce a personal selection of what we consider to be exemplary cases of particular materials where supramolecular chemistry has an important influence, the aim being to show the breadth of properties, principles and applications where the field has 40 recently been deployed and where new paradigms are emerging.…”

Chiral Buckybowl Molecules

“…Certain buckybowls are inherently chiral and difficult to separate from the racemates due to their rapid bowl inversion [4]. Controlling the bowl chirality of these π-conjugates and obtaining enantioenriched buckybowls are challenging tasks for chemists, while buckybowls application in chiral materials is highly promising [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Further extension of the π-conjugation of these chiral enantioenriched buckybowls leads to homochiral carbon nanotubes, and these chiral carbon materials create new perspectives in chiral catalysis, chiral sensing, chiral separation sciences, etc.…”