Calixarene/pillararene-based supramolecular selective binding and molecular assembly

Calixarenes and pillararenes are cyclic oligomers containing repeating units of phenol and methane. The modification of ionized groups bring calixarenes and pillararenes derivates both good water solubility and strong binding affinities towards various organic/inorganic/biological guest molecules in both water and the solid state. Meanwhile, the pre-organized structures of these compounds are indispensable in constructing of stimuli-responsive supramolecular assembly. With these properties, the supramolecular selective binding and molecular assembly based on calixarene/pillararene are widely used in enzyme tandem assay, stimuli-responsive nanostructure, drug delivery, organelle fluorescent imaging, photocontrolled morphological change, organic and inorganic hybrid material, solid tunable photoluminescence and so on. This review summarized the recent research progresses on the calixarene/pillararene-based supramolecular systems and discussed the expectation of the future development.