Supramolecular Host/Guest Compounds and Their Prospects for Multifunctional Materials
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Macromolecular Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2026) | Viewed by 4140
Special Issue Editors
Interests: supramolecular chemistry; thermodynamics; water decontamination; ion selective electrodes
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The selective behaviour of synthetic (crown ethers and cryptands) and natural macrocycles for alkali–metal cations marked the beginning of Supramolecular Chemistry in the late sixties and early seventies. These discoveries provoked a remarkable expansion in this area of research leading to a huge number of papers, reviews, books and the Nobel Prize Award in 1987 to Pedersen (crown ethers), Lehn (cryptands) and Cram (spherands). Since then, Supramolecular Chemistry has captivated the interest of the scientific community to the extent that the initial and continuous interest in host–guest chemistry has extended to the formation of supramolecular assemblies resulting from non-covalent interactions between host and host–guest complex units containing auxiliary functional groups.
The field continues to develop rapidly, covering several disciplines. In fact, Supramolecular Chemistry has contributed significantly to the development of stable tridimensionality nanomaterials with ordered structures, supramolecular functional materials with electronic and transport properties and the use of the hosting properties of new supramolecular structures to encapsulate fullerenes. These statements in no way undermine the fact that it is the stability of host–ion complexes that leads to the production of a huge number of new salts for which their behaviour in solution and their applications have not received widespread interest.
The main aim of this volume is to highlight the latest developments in the following:
- Host–guest chemistry with particular emphasis on the design, synthesis and structural and physicochemical characterisation of new receptors and their complexes with neutral and ionic species in solution and in the solid state.
- Functional materials based on supramolecular assemblies resulting from a diverse range of interactions, their structural characterisation and multidisciplinary applications. An outlook of the prospects for multifunctional materials to impact further scientific and technological developments should be addressed.
Prof. Dr. Angela Danil De Namor
Guest Editor
Dr. Nawal Al Hakawati
Guest Editor Assistant
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Keywords
- supramolecular chemistry
- host-guest chemistry
- macrocycles and cages
- self-assembly
- supramolecular materials
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