Van der Waals Interactions in the Synthesis of Rotaxanes

The first rotaxanes were prepared by a statistical synthetic approach. The threading of a macrocycle around a linear chain is based purely on chance no specific 

Fortunately, more efficient methods for the complexation of macrocyclic hosts with acyclic guest molecules have become available with the advent of supramo-lecular chemistry, resulting in higher yields in rotaxane and catenane synthesis. In the following sections, the preparation of different types of interlocked molecules, with the use of host-guest recognition, is discussed. It should be noted that these template-directed methods differ significantly from the above-mentioned stochastic approach [28]. 

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