Function and Application of Supramolecular Gels: Chiral Molecular Recognition and Asymmetric Catalysis

Supramolecular gel is an important class of soft materials,in which the solvents are immobilized by the entangled three-dimensional netw ork formed by gelator molecules via the various non-covalent interactions. Supramolecular gel can be quickly formed,self-assembled into uniform and adjustable nanostructure over a w ide scale range. Thus the research of supramolecular gel is one of the important research directions among supramolecular chemistry,nanotechnology and materials science. The functional gels are applied w idely in many fields,such as material templates,photoelectric sw itch,drug release,molecular recognition,supramolecular catalysis,etc. With solid-liquid phase transition, controlled self-assembly and other characteristics, the supramolecular gel has become an important vehicle of the reserch of supramolecular chirality and molecular chirality. In recent years,the supramolecular gel has been applied to supramolecular asymmetric catalysis andchiral molecular recognition. And a series of important breakthroughs have been achieved. The new functional application of supramolecular gels have been established,and supramolecular gels have become an important means and method for preparation of chiral nano-materials. The chiral supramolecular gels,as a kind of soft materials w ill have potential application in the field of asymmetric catalysis and chiral recognition. The supramolecular gels may provide a high density of recognition or catalytic sites and chiral microenvironment suitable for recognition and asymmetric reaction,thus,the study of asymmetric catalysis and enantioselective recognition in the supramolecular gels becomes a hot issue and has attracted more and more attention in recent years. In this paper,the application of supramolecular gels on asymmetric catalysis and chiral recognition are review ed mainly.