Molecular dynamics template catalysis

No successful example has been reported so far using a TSA in a dynamic combinatorial approach to transition metal catalyst selection. However, inspired by enzymes and molecular cages, molecularly imprinted polymers were successfully developed by WuUF et al. and in a small number of cases directed towards transition metal catalysis [22]. Cavities as biomimetic catalysts are created by generation of polymeric materials in the presence of a TSA as a template, which is removed after polymerization. In the presence of the substrate, the incorporation of the catalyst precursor leads to high activities, the transition state being stabilized by the polymeric cavities. 

One particular asset of structured self-assemblies is their ability to create nano- to microsized domains, snch as cavities, that could be exploited for chemical synthesis and catalysis. Many kinds of organized self-assemblies have been proved to act as efficient nanoreactors, and several chapters of this book discnss some of them such as small discrete supramolecular vessels (Chapter Reactivity In Nanoscale Vessels, Supramolecular Reactivity), dendrimers (Chapter Supramolecular Dendrlmer Chemistry, Soft Matter), or protein cages and virus capsids (Chapter Viruses as Self-Assembled Templates, Self-Processes). In this chapter, we focus on larger and softer self-assembled structures such as micelles, vesicles, liquid crystals (LCs), or gels, which are made of surfactants, block copolymers, or amphiphilic peptides. In addition, only the systems that present a high kinetic lability (i.e., dynamic) of their aggregated building blocks are considered more static objects such as most of polymersomes and molecularly imprinted polymers are discussed elsewhere (Chapters Assembly of Block Copolymers and Molecularly Imprinted Polymers, Soft Matter, respectively). Finally, for each of these dynamic systems, we describe their functional properties with respect to their potential for the promotion and catalysis of molecular and biomolecu-lar transformations, polymerization, self-replication, metal colloid formation, and mineralization processes. 

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