Precise Macroscopic Supramolecular Assemblies: Strategies and Applications

Macroscopic supramolecular assembly (MSA) is a new concept in supramolecular science with a focus on interfacial assembly of macroscopic building blocks, which has largely extended the applicable materials of supramolecular assembly and provided new solutions to fabricating tissue scaffolds, soft devices, etc. The precision of the assembled structures is of great interest; unlike molecular assemblies, MSA precision is highly dependent on the matching degree of assembled surfaces because of the large interactive area and group number, which result in remarkably increased kinetic possibilities and metastable assemblies. This Concept introduces the principle, history, and development of MSA, elaborates the low-precision challenge in MSA, summarizes the strategies for precise MSA based on the different thermodynamic stability of precise/imprecise structures and control over assembly kinetics, and finally demonstrates the applications of precise MSA structures in advanced manufacture such as tissue scaffolds.