Supramolecular Soluble Structures

However, the largest challenge to the widespread utilization of carbon materials is their poor solubility. Researchers have devoted a great deal of effort to improving their solubility and make them disperse well in typical solvents. Based on the special supramolecular and structural properties of pillar[n]arenes, water-soluble pillararenes are considered to disperse carbon nanotubes and graphene in aqueous solutions. The pillararene-based carbon hybrid materials will be introduced in this section. 

Braun T (1997) Water soluble fullerene-cyclodextrin supramolecular assembles. Preparation, structure, properties (an annotated bibliography). Full Sci Technol. 5 615-626. 

Let us compare the methods applied by Pedersen for establishing the complex formation with a modern approach. Today tedious solubility studies are carried out almost exclusively with practical applications in mind, but they are not performed to prove the complex formation. For instance, one ofthe main reasons for the use of cyclodextrin complexes in the pharmaceutical industry is their solubilizing effect on drugs [8]. There, and almost only there, solubility studies are a must. As concerns spectroscopic methods, at present the NMR technique is one ofthe main tools enabling one to prove the formation of inclusion complex, carry out structural studies (for instance, making use of the NOE effect [9a]), determine the complex stability [9b, c] and mobility of its constituent parts [9d]. However, at the time when Pedersen performed his work, the NMR method was in the early stage of development, and thus inaccurate, and its results proved inconclusive. UV spectra retained their significance in supramolecular chemistry, whilst at present the IR method is used to prove the complex formation only in very special cases. 

The synthesis and structures of transition metal complexes of anionic cyclo-polypnictogen ligands, e.g. cyclo-P5, are discussed in Section 7.2.1 and 11.2. An exciting recent development involves the use of these complexes as building blocks for the construction of novel supramolecular assemblies, including one-dimensional (ID) and two-dimensional (2D) polymers and even soluble spherical fullerene-like aggregates.Complexes that have been used for this... 

A further approach to electrically wire redox enzymes by means of supramolecular structures that include CNTs as conductive elements involved the wrapping of CNTs with water-soluble polymers, for example, polyethylene imine or polyacrylic acid.54 The polymer coating enhanced the solubility of the CNTs in aqueous media, and facilitated the covalent linkage of the enzymes to the functionalized CNTs (Fig. 12.9c). The polyethylene imine-coated CNTs were covalently modified with electroactive ferrocene units, and the enzyme glucose oxidase (GOx) was covalently linked to the polymer coating. The ferrocene relay units were electrically contacted with the electrode by means of the CNTs, and the oxidized relay mediated the electron transfer from the enzyme-active center to the electrode, a process that activated the bioelectrocatalytic functions of GOx. Similar results were observed upon tethering the ferrocene units to polyacrylic acid-coated CNTs, and the covalent attachment of GOx to the modifying polymer. 

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