Methylene-bridged naphthotubes: new macrocyclic arenes with great potential for supramolecular chemistry†

Macrocyclic arenes have been widely used due to their special structures, ease of modification, and outstanding properties. However, macrocyclic arenes with well-defined cavities are still rare. Recently, Quan, Jiang and co-workers constructed a novel class of macrocyclic arenes with well-defined cavities, namely methylene-bridged naphthotubes, which used rigid and curved alkoxy-substituted bisnaphthalene clefts as building blocks. Compared with structurally similar but flexible macrocycles, methylene-bridged naphthotubes possessed stronger binding affinities to organic cations and showed more outstanding molecular recognition capabilities. Moreover, methylene-bridged naphthotubes could serve as chiral sensors for chiral organic cations through different chiral transfer mechanisms. Herein, we highlight this ground-breaking work, which opens up great prospects for the unlimited application of macrocyclic arenes with well-defined cavities in supramolecular chemistry.