The Art of Building Small

InfoMetricsFiguresRef. Precision ChemistryASAPArticle This publication is Open Access under the license indicated. Learn More CiteCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore citation options ShareShare onFacebookXWeChatLinkedInRedditEmailBlueskyJump toExpandCollapse EditorialMarch 11, 2025The Art of Building SmallClick to copy article linkArticle link copied!Ben L. FeringaBen L. FeringaMore by Ben L. Feringahttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0588-8435Open PDFPrecision ChemistryCite this: Precis. Chem. 2025, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXXClick to copy citationCitation copied!https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/prechem.5c00023https://doi.org/10.1021/prechem.5c00023Published March 11, 2025 Publication History Received 24 February 2025Published online 11 March 2025editorialCo-published 2025 by University of Science and Technology of China and American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 . License Summary*You are free to share (copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below:Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license.Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator.Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license*DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. This publication is licensed underCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 . License Summary*You are free to share(copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below: Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license. Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator.Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license *DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. License Summary*You are free to share(copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below: Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license. Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator. Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license *DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. License Summary*You are free to share(copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below: Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license. Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator. Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license *DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. License Summary*You are free to share(copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below: Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license. Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator. Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license *DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. License Summary*You are free to share(copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below: Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license. Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator. Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license *DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. ACS PublicationsCo-published 2025 by University of Science and Technology of China and American Chemical SocietySubjectswhat are subjects Article subjects are automatically applied from the ACS Subject Taxonomy and describe the scientific concepts and themes of the article. Biocompatibility Energy Materials Pharmaceuticals Recycling Leonardo da Vinci more than 500 years ago already told us "where nature finishes producing its own species, man begins, using natural things and in harmony with this very nature, to create an infinity of species." The amazing precision at which dynamic molecular functions are executed in complex living systems, like vision, replication, self-healing, recycling, adaptation or metabolism, is a wake-up call to all chemical explorers. It is indeed astonishing how Nature managed to create from the bottom-up all the complex molecular systems comprising a living organism with a very limited set of molecular building blocks. For chemistry, being the creating science par excellence, this is a clear message to us. Facing the challenges of our future sustainable society and industry, chemistry will have to play more than ever its central role. Green processes and products, smart materials and energy carriers, recycling plastics, new pharmaceuticals by design instead of trial and error, in all these areas where the art of building small will be leading, high precision chemistry will be at the basis of many of our future innovations. Taking inspiration from Nature were molecular communication, sensing and adaptation, self-healing or recycling are intrinsic to the molecular systems, our molecular space to explore future precision in reactivity, molecular properties and functions is indeed unlimited.There are numerous challenges and approaches exploring the concept of precision in chemistry, for instance, the selectivity of producing chemical bonds, the extent to which we can control function in materials, or the cooperativity of distinct molecules in complex far from equilibrium systems. Despite the amazing advances in catalysis being the beating heart of our chemical processes, enhancing chemo- and enantioselectivity, environmental impact factors and reducing energy costs (especially for various heterogeneous processes) often require a serious improvement in the level of precision in bond formation toward sustainable chemical processes of the future. Here enzymes, especially using protein engineering techniques, might guide us to greener solutions. Perhaps even more challenging is precision bond cleavage facing the demand for recycling materials. Governing the balance between robustness and ready recyclability without compromising function requires high precision in balancing bond strength and molecular interactions akin living systems. Here the interplay of covalent dynamic covalent and noncovalent (supramolecular) bonds requires precise tuning of structure and function. After more than 100 years of great success in making bonds, a challenge is also how to achieve controlled bond cleavage on command.With chemistry on the route from molecules to adaptive materials and dynamic systems, the introduction of functionality that can trigger responsive behavior is key. Here a precise and highly delicate balance between structure, assembly and motion is essential. For instance, in the article (DOI: 10.1021/prechem.4c00103) we present in this issue, molecular motors are used to achieve photoresponsive coatings based on light-driven rotary motors embedded in liquid crystal microcapsules. Due to these tiny molecular machines, actuating behavior can be achieved noninvasively with light. Smart and adaptive materials hold great promise in fields ranging from coatings to energy management and biomedical applications.In the emerging field of photopharmacology, in order to achieve noninvasive regulation of biological activity of drugs with high spatial-temporal control, it requires precisely designed molecular switches operating under biocompatible conditions and using red light, key to future high precision therapies in the clinic.Electrochemistry and photoredox catalysis offer tremendous opportunities to change the face of chemistry and our future sustainable chemical industries. Again the precise matching of redox properties is essential enabling amazing new transformations. Beyond tuning reactivity and adaptive properties, it should be realized that numerous products in daily use, ranging from polymers to personal care formulations, comprise multicomponent molecular systems. Moving from trial and error to design, AI and Robotics, will be routinely implemented in our discovery processes to achieve high precision in composing these products.It is evident that precision in our discipline offers fascinating challenges and has many faces during the art of building small but is by no means a small matter in the future of the chemical sciences.Author InformationClick to copy section linkSection link copied!AuthorBen L. Feringa, Jacobus van 't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences, Academy Professor Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0588-8435NotesViews expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.Cited By Click to copy section linkSection link copied!This article has not yet been cited by other publications.Download PDFFiguresReferences Get e-AlertsGet e-AlertsPrecision ChemistryCite this: Precis. Chem. 2025, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXXClick to copy citationCitation copied!https://doi.org/10.1021/prechem.5c00023Published March 11, 2025 Publication History Received 24 February 2025Published online 11 March 2025Co-published 2025 by University of Science and Technology of China and American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 . License Summary*You are free to share (copy and redistribute) this article in any medium or format within the parameters below:Creative Commons (CC): This is a Creative Commons license.Attribution (BY): Credit must be given to the creator.Non-Commercial (NC): Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted. No Derivatives (ND): Derivative works may be created for non-commercial purposes, but sharing is prohibited. View full license*DisclaimerThis summary highlights only some of the key features and terms of the actual license. It is not a license and has no legal value. Carefully review the actual license before using these materials. Article Views-Altmetric-Citations-Learn about these metrics closeArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated.Recommended Articles FiguresReferencesThis publication has no figures.This publication has no References.