Capturing Paraquats

摘要

Supramolecular polymers, in which the monomer units are bound by weak interactions, could have several potential advantages over covalently bonded chains. For example, their extent of association could be temperature-dependent, so they could have lower viscosities during processing steps and assemble longer chains after cooling. However, supramolecular polymers tend to be short oligomers with only about 10 repeating units. Niu et al. report on a supramolecular polymer made from two monomers, one a conjugated chain bearing 32-crown-10 cryptand cages at both ends, and the other bearing complementary paraquat rods at both ends.