Dynamically Adaptive Catalytic Capsules on Solid Supports

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The chemist's quest to transform matter has benefitted from tremendous advances in recent years, with new methods and techniques in chemical synthesis appearing at an accelerating pace. The majority of transformations in the synthetic chemist's toolbox require large inputs of energy, organic solvents, and protecting groups that serve as chemical masking tape, fulfilling their purpose and then being discarded. It would be of benefit to reduce the amounts of all three inputs for both ecological and economic reasons.Biological systems carry out chemistry in water efficiently and economically, using assembly lines of enzymes to piece molecules together. Biological receptors and catalysts differ from synthetic versions in that their functions have been honed through the selective pressures of evolution as opposed to design from first principles, allowing their function to be tuned in ways that the cleverest designer might find hard to predict. All living matter bears witness to the incredible chemical and systemic complexity that can be achieved through the 'blind' design of natural selection.The goal of this project is to create a new class of molecular containers capable of evolving to bind different guests with high affinity. This adaptation will find use in the creation of guest-specific sensors and enzyme-like catalysts, as cages are tailor-made to lower the activation energy for specific reactions. The ability to quickly make designer catalysts for different reactions, coupled with the ability to operate in water, could render these catalytic capsules industrially useful as green nano-reactors. Immobilisation of templated capsules on solid supports will allow for the creation of flow reactors (nano assembly lines) and sensors tailored to specific substrates and analytes.