Construction of Supramolecular Polymers Based on Host‐Guest Recognition†

Abstract

What is the most favorite and original chemistry developed in your research group?The establishment of two new types of host‐guest recognition building blocks (21‐crown‐7/secondary ammonium salt and pillar[5]arene/alkyl chain) for supramolecular polymers.How do you get into this specific field? Could you please share some experiences with our readers?I got my introduction to supramolecular chemistry during the postgraduate period. There are many phenomena closely related to the weak non‐covalent interactions in nature, such as the storage and transmission of genetic information through the DNA double helix structure. Inspired by these fascinating natural phenomena, scientists try to use non‐covalent interactions to prepare many very complex self‐assembled systems including supramolecular polymers from natural and artificially designed structural units. In 1987, Lehn, Cram, and Pederson won the Nobel Prize for their contribution to supramolecular chemistry. At present, supra‐molecular chemistry has developed into an emerging discipline formed by the intersection of chemistry, physics, life sciences, materials science, and electronic engineering.How do you supervise your students?Lead by example, teach students according to their aptitude, strive for excellence, and be a teacher and a friend.What is the most important personality for scientific research?Curiosity, thinking, hard work, and concentration.What's your hobbies? What's your favorite book(s)?Hiking and reading. Swordmen novels.How do you keep balance between research and family?Reasonable arrangement and choice.Who influences you mostly in your life?My grandmother. She taught me: “No pains, no gains”.Self‐assembly is a topic of intense scientific interest. Supramolecular polymers are one of the most important research directions in the field of chemical self‐assembly. As a novel kind of polymeric systems, supramolecular polymers are still in the early stage of their development. There are three fundamental scientific problems: How to expand host‐guest recognition building blocks? How to realize the control of the structures of supramolecular polymers at multiple levels? And how to realize multi‐stimuli responsivenesses of supramolecular polymers? To address these scientific problems, we constructed a series of novel supramolecular polymers based on host‐guest recognition.