Chaperone-Assisted Formation of Cucurbit[8]uril-Based Molecular Porous Materials with One-Dimensional Channel Structure

Exploiting "chaperone molecule" to navigate the successful assembly energy landscapes has been extensively used in biological systems, whereas in artifical supramolecular systems the "chaperone-assisted" assembly strategy to be used for the synthesis of materials with novel structures or the structures to be hardly prepared by "conventional" methods are still far from realizing the potential functions. In this work, we present a new example of small organic molecule acting as "chaperone molecule" in the facile formation of organic molecular porous materials. This porous material is composed of pure cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8]) macrocycle and possesses a honeycomb-like structure with an isolated and relatively large one-dimensional (1D) nanochannel. Moreover, it has good chemical and thermal stability, and shows a good adsorption capability for large molecule loading. Importantly, with the assistance of chaperone molecules, pure CB[8] could also be recycled even from a complex aqueous solution, demonstrating a powerful purification method of CB[8] from complex systems.