Fine-Tuned Supramolecular Polymerization 5 February 2015
Fine-tuned supramolecular polymerization 5 February 2015 In nature, supramolecular complexes—chain-like for example, a drug of one chirality will be structures that are composed of many small units biologically useful, whereas the opposite linked mainly by weak non-covalent bonds—are enantiomer will be useless or, in the worst case, assembled and disassembled in a precisely harmful. Frequently, a pure material will have quite controlled way. Now, in work published in Science, different properties from a racemic mixture, which researchers from the RIKEN Center for Emergent contains equal amounts of each of the Matter Science, led by Takuzo Aida, have enantiomers. This finding was also important demonstrated a new method for artificially building because it allowed the scientists to exert control and dismantling supramolecular polymers in a over the final geometry of the chain. tightly controlled and selective way, following the methods of traditional polymer chemistry by taking Daigo Miyajima, who along with Aida is advantage of the monomer elements' own corresponding author, says, "What is exciting is tendency to self-organize. This opens the way to that, based on lessons from polymer chemistry, we the creation, though precision supramolecular were able to build these macromolecular polymers engineering, or polymers with a wide range of in a chain-growth rather than step-growth fashion. properties that could be exploited for new This has made it possible to control the length of applications. chains, the sequence of molecules, and even the stereochemical structure, and through this we hope The work began from a serendipitous observation to contribute to progress in precision in an earlier experiment that a certain molecule, macromolecular engineering." containing a corranulene core, seemed to exist in a stable state but that, when an initiator was added Looking to the future, Aida adds, "Supramolecular to the solvent, it began to self-assemble into a polymers can have semiconducting properties if polymer.
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