Host-Guest Complexation: A Modular Approach for Structural Control (MAS-Control) in Supramolecular Polymerization

Key principles to attain enhanced functional efficiency among organic soft materials often rely on mechanisms regulating structures and their controlled organization by defining and dictating their size and dispersity. While addressing the associated grand challenges, supramolecular chemists have mastered the art of engineering molecular self-assembly process under kinetic conditions, either by virtue of introduced conformational changes in the molecular structures of the monomers or via the off-nucleation process. The available reports are limited to specific molecular structures of the monomers, and this necessitates exploration of programmable polymeric structures to advance the field of supramolecular chemistry. The major objective of this proposal is to develop a universal and modular design strategy for structural control in supramolecular polymers, applicable to any molecular design. The proposal aims at achieving high programmability in the kinetic profiles by the host-guest supramolecular complexation of the monomer building blocks to create a kinetically trapped state, to begin with. In the next step, external stimuli-triggered host-guest decomplexation of monomer building blocks will be harnessed to enable kinetically controlled growth processes. Further, by modulating the extent of external stimulation, the supramolecular polymeric system will be advanced with the programmable structural organization. Thus, reaching this goal is the key to unravel the existing challenges of structural control, and herein proposed "host-guest chemistrya modular and universal approach" to programming molecular self-assembly process with controlled size and dispersity- is very appropriate. This planned research will be a paradigm shift and will train the next generation of scientists, technologists, and innovators in a range of new concepts, and topics for realizing soft functional materials.