A supramolecular polymer formed by the combination of crown ether-based and charge-transfer molecular recognition

Abstract

Crown ether-based supramolecular polymers have been widely studied. The driving forces for their formation were usually focused on host–guest interactions and only very limited other supramolecular interactions are utilized to build crown ether-based supramolecular polymers. Here we report a supramolecular polymer constructed from two heteroditopic monomers driven by the combination of crown ether-based and charge-transfer molecular recognition. From our experiments, it is feasible and reasonable to introduce charge-transfer interactions into the field of supramolecular polymers constructed from crown ethers. In addition, we successfully demonstrated that this supramolecular polymer can be used in the preparation of nanofibers via electrospinning. The successful fabrication of nanofibers and supramolecular polymer films shows the versatility of this kind of low molecular weight supramolecular asymmetric AB-type monomers.