Historical Background of Macrocyclic Compounds

Kanazawa University, Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan Email ogoshi se.kanazawa-u.ac.jp 

The concept of supramolecular chemistry was proposed by Lehn in the 1980s. He defined supramolecular chemistty as follows  

Host-guest chemistty using macrocyclic compounds as hosts absolutely adheres to Lehn s concept of supramolecular chemistty because these are organized entities constructed from two or more chemical species by designed intermolecular interactions. Thus, host-guest chemistty based on macrocyclic compounds was an important starting point of supramolecular chemistty. This fact was supported by the Nobel Prize for Chemistty in 1987 

In addition to the ability of macrocyclic compounds to form host-guest complexes, macrocyclic compounds have attracted considerable interest because of their structural features as follows  

In this chapter, we present the investigations of the major structural and physical properties of macrocyclic compounds in historical order. First, we compare the chemical and X-ray ciystal structures and the physical properties of the four key classes of compounds, cyclodextrins, crown ethers, calbc[n]arenes and cucurbit[n]urils, which have been dominant in the field of supramolecular chemistry. Other well-known and useful host molecules, and recently discovered compounds with great potential in the field of macrocyclic chemistry, are also described. Second, we discuss the desired properties of macrocyclic compounds, and the advantages of the novel macrocyclic compounds pillar[ ]arenes compared with the four key classes of compounds. 

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From the historical background of macrocyclic compounds, the factors that make macrocyclic compounds widely usable in a wide variety of applications are as follows ... 

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