Supramolecular Buffering by Ring–Chain Competition

Model-driven engineering of supramolecular buffering by multivalency

A supramolecular system in which the concentration of a molecule is buffered over several orders of magnitude is presented. Molecular buffering is achieved as a result of competition in a ring-chain equilibrium of multivalent ureidopyrimidinone monomers and a monovalent naphthyridine molecule which acts as an end-capper. While we previously only considered divalent ureidopyrimidinone monomers w...

Optical imaging : Ultrafast buffering by molecular gas

Motility powered by supramolecular springs and ratchets.

Not all biological movements are caused by molecular motors sliding along filaments or tubules. Just as springs and ratchets can store or release energy and rectify motion in physical systems, their analogs can perform similar functions in biological systems. The energy of biological springs is derived from hydrolysis of a nucleotide or the binding of a ligand, whereas biological ratchets are p...

Modulating Molecular Properties by Supramolecular Interactions

Supramolecular interaction is rapidly emerging as the method of choice for tuning molecular properties to meet desired applications like drug delivery vehicles, sensors, designing molecular architectures, catalysis chambers, biomimetic systems and so on. We have successfully demonstrated the modulation of electron and proton transfer reactions, acidbase characteristics and photophysical propert...

Semiconductor nanohelices templated by supramolecular ribbons.

Nanohelices of cadmium sulfide (CdS) have been made by the mineralization of supramolecular organic ribbons. A schematic representation of how coiled CdS helices (yellow) can be templated from a twisted ribbon (blue) by growth along one face of the ribbon is shown top right.