Artificial Supramolecular Systems

Juris A (2001) In Balzani V (ed) Electron transfer in chemistry. Biological and artificial supramolecular systems. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, vol 3, p 655... 

A biomembrane is an excellent example of supramolecular assemblies, in which various functional molecules are structurally organized for molecular recognition. In order to develop artificial supramolecular systems capable of mimicking biomembrane functions, it seems important to investigate molecular recognition by macrocyclic hosts embedded in synthetic bilayer membranes. 

In Chap. 6, biological supermolecules are explained and classified by function. Artificial supramolecular systems that mimic biological ones are also described. Biomimetic chemistry, which mimics the essence of a biosystem and then develops an artificial system that is better than the biological one, is widely used in this field. Fimctional developments, such as molecular transport, information transmission and conversion, energy conversion and molecular conversion (enzymatic functionaUty) based on biomimetic chemistry are described. New methodologies such as combinatorial chemistry and in vitro selection mimic evolutionary processes in nature. We leave this topic until the end of the book because we want to show that there is still lots to do in supramolecular chemistry, and that supramolecular chemistry has huge future potential. 

The artificial supramolecular systems are building-up from the spontaneously processed nanosized molecular assemblies, amongst which the most representative are self-assembled monolayers, Langmuir-Blodgett films and LbL assemblies. The latter (LbL) approach is most versatile due to the required mild conditions as well as the variety of materials that can be included in supramolecular assemblies (ranging from organic-, bio- and inorganic one) on flat substrates (Fig. 2.5A) and microscopic colloidal particles (Fig. 2.5B). 

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