The formation of a vast majority of the supramolecular polymers reported so far is thermodynamically controlled. That means that the self-assembly of the corresponding monomeric units yields only one type of supramolecular structure. However, the operation of pathway complexity, that is, the possibility to achieve different output from only one type of starting materials, is ubiquitous in life sciences. The addition of nucleophiles to a,b-unsaturated carbonyls, the different conductive phases in organic semiconductors or fatal diseases like Alzheimer or Parkinson, relies on pathway complexity. We are pretty much involved in the investigation of pathway complexity in the field of supramolecular polymers that allows achieving supramolecular aggregates with different properties (chirality, emission, etc). These properties, in turn, can be tuned by incorporating the factor time. These studies also open the way to investigate complex processes like seeded or living supramolecular polymerizations to afford functional materials with enhanced properties.

Selected publications:  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019, 58, 16730; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2019, 141, 5192; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019, 58, 510; Small, 2018, 14, 1702437; Chem. Eur. J. 2016, 22, 13724

 

Schematic illustration of the pathway complexity that supramolecular polyemrs can exhibit 

Energy landscape for the kinetically controlled supramolecular polymerization of carbonyl-bridged triarylamines

 

Influence of connectivity in the energy landscapes of N-annulated perylenes