Advanced supramolecular polymers constructed by orthogonal self-assembly

Chem Soc Rev. 2012 Sep 21;41(18):5950-68. doi: 10.1039/c2cs35099h. Epub 2012 Jul 6.

Abstract

Large aggregates, constructed by linking together monomer building blocks via non-covalent interactions with polymer properties, are regarded as supramolecular polymers. Many kinds of non-covalent interactions, such as metal-ligand coordination, hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, ionic interaction, and host-guest interaction etc., can be involved in the binding interactions of monomer building blocks, as well as in the modification of the side chain for the construction of variable supramolecular polymers. In this tutorial review, we summarized the reported supramolecular polymers fully- or partially-created from the combination of multiple non-covalent binding interactions, mainly of two kinds, in the orthogonal way.