Supramolecular gels: Structural diversity and supramolecular chirality

Abstract

Supramolecular gels, an important type of soft matter, have showed unique advantages in the construction of functional soft materials, such as multiple stimuli responsive, photoelectrical, and biological compatibility materials. Through supramolecular gelation, diverse, uniform nanostructures can be obtained in a large quantity. On the other hand, most gelators are chiral molecules, so supramolecular gel is a medium to realize the expression of the chirality in supramolecular and nano level, especially to realize effectively chirality transfer, amplification, and asymmetric catalysis, and to fabricate various chiral architectures. In this paper, we describe the structural diversity and chirality in supramolecular gels, and discuss the future prospects for supramolecular gels.