Chaowei Yin

1 Introduction Dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC) focuses on covalent reactions and assemblies under thermodynamic control, setting up a bridge between covalent synthesis and supramolecular chemistry [1-7]. Over the past decade DCC has emerged as a versatile and powerful tool for the construction of macrocycle- and cage-type discrete assemblies [8-17], infinite polymers [18-24], and covalent organic frameworks [25-30].

Abstract Aromatic-carbonyl (Ar···C═O) interactions, attractive interactions between the arene plane and the carbon atom of carbonyl, are in the infancy as one type of new supramolecular bonding forces. Here the study and functionalization of aromatic-carbonyl interactions in solution is reported. A combination of aromatic-carbonyl interactions and dynamic covalent chemistry provided a versatile avenue.

1 Introduction Non-covalent interactions of π faces play a notable role in chemistry and biology.[1] Supramolecular bonding forces involving π faces of carbonyl groups are generating increasing attention, including lone pair-carbonyl (n···C═O) and carbonyl-carbonyl (C═O···C═O) interactions (Figure 1a).[2] Both electrostatics and n→π* orbital delocalization make the contribution, with the strength distance-dependent.[3] These n···C═O and C═O···C═O interactions have been shown to control...