Coordination‐Driven Self‐Assembly of Functionalized Supramolecular Metallacycles: Highlighted Research during 2010–2018

Abstract During the past few decades, the construction of macrocyclic molecules/complexes has attracted considerable attention because of their wide applications in sensing, catalysis, molecular machine, drug delivery, etc. Coordination‐driven self‐assembly has proven to be a simple yet highly efficient approach for the preparation of various supramolecular metallacycles with the predetermined shapes and sizes as well as the distribution and total number of functional groups. Since the significant progress has been made during the last few years in the field of coordination‐driven self‐assembly, it is time to summarize the recent development in coordination‐driven self‐assembly of functionalized supramolecular metallacycles. In this review, we will highlight some recent advances concerning the preparation of functionalized supramolecular metallacycles via coordination‐driven self‐assembly between the year 2010–2018. In addition, the properties and the applications of these metallacycles in the areas of photo‐ and electrochemistry, sensing, supramolecular gel, biological applications, etc. will be also discussed.