The supramolecular polymer is a hot topic in the field of supramolecular chemistry and material chemistry. Recently, Prof. He Tian Group achieved remarkable advance in the supramolecular polymers. A paper entitled “A Rapidly Self-Healing Supramolecular Polymer Hydrogel with Photostimulated Room-Temperature Phosphorescence Responsiveness”(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)15213773/earlyview) was published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (2014，DOI: 10.1002/anie.201407402). This work was completed by the group members of Prof. Tian, Dr. Xiang Ma and doctoral student Hui Chen.
Development of self-healing supramolecular polymeric materials is important for supramolecular chemistry and polymer materials. A supramolecular polymeric hydrogel forms via host–guest recognition between a β-cyclodextrin host polymer and an α-bromonaphthalene guest polymer without any additional gelators. This hydrogel can self-heal within only about one minute under ambient atmosphere without any additive, and can be excited to engender photostimulated room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) emission when another azobenzene guest polymer is introduced. This is the first example of functional supramolecular polymer materials with room temperature phosphorescence address.
In the past two years, Dr. Associate Prof. Xiang Ma, doctoral student, Qiwei Zhang, Xuyang Yao and their colleagues have achieved a series of important progress in supramolecular polymers: constructing a network supramolecular polymer hydrogel system (Chem. Commun. 2013, 49, 9800), regulating the morphology of supramolecular polymer by varying the host (Chem. Commun., 2014, 50, 1567), aggregation-induced emission supramolecular polymer (J. Mater. Chem. C, 2014, 2, 5155), photochromic supramolecular polymer (Chem. Commun., 2014, 50, 7166) and so on. Meanwhile, based on the significant academic impact in the area of supramolecular polymers, Tian group was invited to contribute a review entitled “Stimuli-responsive supramolecular polymers in aqueous solution” in international top review journal Acc. Chem. Res. (2014, 47, 1971).
