Electron-transfer reactions supramolecular assemblies

Gyclodextrin cavities form the early models of host molecules involved in supramolecular assemblies. There are many other molecules known as cryptands which can be designed to offer a cavity of fairly precise dimensions to accommodate various ions or metal complexes. It may be possible to locate not just one, but two, guest molecules inside a cryptand cavity, and this may lead to new electron transfer reactions in restricted environments another step towards synthetic photoinduced biochemical reactions. 

In recent years considerable effort has been devoted to elucidating the pathway of energy transfer in supramolecular assemblies. The impetus for this work stems from the fact that electron transfer reactions are endemic in biosynthesis. Such critical and well-known cellular activities as respiratory oxidative phosphorylation and photosynthesis " rely on electron transfer processes. Most of these are mediated via protein-protein interactions. Currently, it remains uncertain whether a specific pathway is required for a given biological electron transfer event The study of synthetic donor-acceptor sys-... 

The field of supramolecular chemistry is concerned with a large number of systems ranging from simple host-guest complexes to more complicated solution assemblies, as well as two-dimensional (organized monolayers) and three-dimensional assemblies (crystalline solids). Nonco-valent interactions play an important role in the kinetic assembly and thermodynamic stabilization of all these systems and constitute their most distinctive feature. Electron-transfer reactions can obviously be affected by supramolecular structures, but the reverse is also true. It is possible to alter the structure and the thermodynamic stability of supramolecular assemblies using electrochemical (redox) conversions. In other words, electron-transfer reactions can be utilized to exert some degree of control on supramolecular aggregates. Provided in this article is an overview of the interplay between supramolecular structure and electron-transfer reactions. 

In this chapter, we will concentrate on the subjects of synthetic strategies for (1) porphyrins and the capability of the products for molecular recognition of small organic substrates via intermolecular and noncovalent interactions (2) effective electron-transfer reaction regulated by intermolecular interaction " and (3) self-assembled porphyrin to construct supramolecular system for the guest. The Structures of porphyrins and their metalloporphyrin derivatives have attracted chemists due to their suitability as a host framework for organic guest molecules. 

While the variety of NPs used in catalytic and sensor applications is extensive, this chapter will primarily focus on metallic and semiconductor NPs. The term functional nanoparticle will refer to a nanoparticle that interacts with a complementary molecule and facilitate an electrochemical process, integrating supramolecular and redox function. The chapter will first concentrate on the role of exo-active surfaces and core-based materials within sensor applications. Exo-active surfaces will be evaluated based upon their types of molecular receptors, ability to incorporate multiple chemical functionalities, selectivity toward distinct analytes, versatility as nanoscale receptors, and ability to modify electrodes via nanocomposite assemblies. Core-based materials will focus on electrochemical labeling and tagging methods for biosensor applications, as well as biological processes that generate an electrochemical response at their core. Finally, this chapter will shift its focus toward the catalytic nature of NPs, discussing electrochemical reactions and enhancement in electron transfer. 

Finally, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold electrodes constitute electrochemical interfaces of supramolecular structures that efficiently connect catalytic reactions, substrate and product diffusion and heterogeneous electron transfer step when enzymes are immobilised on them. Resulting enzyme-SAM electrodes have demonstrated to exhibit good performance and long-term enzyme stability. 

Figure 3.9 illustrates the electrochemical and mass transport events that can occur at an electrode modified with a interfacial supramolecular assembly [9]. For monolayers in contact with a supporting electrolyte, the principal process is heterogeneous electron transfer across the electrode/monolayer interface. However, as discussed later in Chapter 5, thin films of polymers [10] represent an important class of interfacial supramolecular assembly (ISA) in which the properties of the redox center are affected by the physico-chemical properties of the polymer backbone. To address the properties of these thin films, mass transfer and reaction kinetics have to be considered. In this section, the properties of an ideally responding ISA are considered. 

Willner et al. [52] have created some elegant interfacial supramolecular assemblies to address this issue by removing the non-covalently bound flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) redox center from glucose oxidase and immobilizing the enzyme on a tether consisting of cystamine chemisorbed on a gold surface, a pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) link and FAD. The mediator potential and electron transfer distances of this assembly were carefully chosen so that transfer of electrons from the FAD to the PQQ and to the electrode is very fast. A maximum rate of 900 150 s-1 for the enzymatic reaction within this monolayer assembly was obtained, which is indistinguishable from the value of about 1000 s-1 obtained for the enzyme in solution. While monolayers can offer molecular-level control of the interfacial structure, the... 

On a second front, in all of the systems described here, the hydrogen bond interface is required to maintain assembly of the supramolecular complex. This construct makes it difficult to assess the effect of pA a on the coupled electron- and proton-transfer reactions. By placing a network proximal to, yet distinct from, the electron transfer pathway while maintaining independent spectroscopic signatures for electron and proton transfer, the kinetics for the isolated events can be examined as the pATa of the environment is systematically varied. 

Among the systems proposed as models for the photosynthetic reaction center, supramolecular assemblies in which Ru(II)-polypyridine complexes and 4,4 -bipyridinium units are held together noncovalently in threaded and interlocked structures have been extensively studied [43, 82-88]. In such assemblies, connections between the molecular components rely on charge transfer interactions between the electron acceptor bipyridinium units and aromatic electron donor groups (Fig. 3). For instance, in the various pseudorotaxanes formed in acetonitrile solution at 298 K by the threading of cyclophane 4 + by the dioxybenzene-containing tethers of 192+ (Fig. 17) [84], an efficient photoinduced electron... 

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