Recent Advances in Crystal Engineering from Nanoscience Views: A Brief Review

Crystal engineering has recently emerged as a method of choice for the design and construction of organic as well as metal-organic functional materials. Crystal engineering attempts to establish packing trends in whole families of compounds and seeks to establish connections between structure and function. The utility of crystal engineering has also been expanded to the nanoscience and the development of nanomaterials. The crystal engineering of materials on the nanoscale has attracted attention from various fields of research. Using bottom-up assembly strategies, a wide range of functional systems can be accessed. Materials of nanometer-scale dimensions having unique physicochemical properties are of great interest in various fields such as synthetic chemistry, materials science, catalysis and medicine. This review concerns to the recent advances in crystal engineering from nanoscience views. This study was conducted in four categories; nanococrystals, nano metal-organic frameworks, composites of polyoxometalates and also some of the nanocarbons.