From Supermolecules to Supramolecular Assemblies

As pointed out in Chapter 1, supramolecular chemistry comprises two broad, partially overlapping areas covering on the one hand the oligomolecular supermolecules and, on the other, the supramolecular assemblies, extended polymolecular arrays presenting a more or less well-defined microscopic organisation and macroscopic features depending on their nature (layers, films, membranes, vesicles, micelles, microemulsions, gels, mesomorphic phases, solid state species, etc.). 

Continuous progress is being made in the design of synthetic molecular assemblies, based on a growing understanding of the relations between the properties of the molecular components (structure, sites for intermolecular binding, polar-apo-lar domains, etc.), the characteristics of the processes that lead to their association and the supramolecular features of the resulting polymolecular entity. 

Molecular organization and self-assembly into layers, membranes, vesicles etc., construction of multilayer films [7.1-7.5], generation of defined aggregate morphologies [4.74, 4.75, 7.6-7.8J etc., make it possible to build up specific supramolecular architectures. The polymerization of the molecular components has been a major step in increasing control over the structural properties of such assemblies [7.9-7.13]. 

Endowing these polymolecular entities with recognition units and reactive functional groups may lead to systems performing molecular recognition or supramolecular catalysis on external or internal surfaces of organic (molecular layers, membranes, vesicles, polymers, etc.) [7.1-7.13, A.41] or inorganic (zeolites, clays, sol-gel preparations, etc.) [7.14-7.20] materials. 

1 Heterogeneous Molecular Recognition. Supramolecular Solid Materials 

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