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Multi-axis atropisomers are common, but techniques for structural elucidation are limited. Here, the authors report a correlation between molecular dynamics and electronic through-space conjugation (TSC), along with absolute separation of the syn and anti conformers.

Using crosslinked entanglement induced by weaving-inspired asymmetric nodes, flexible polyurethane and rigid epoxy polymers are efficiently integrated into a single multi-component polymeric network.

The low natural abundance of heavy water makes high-purity extraction challenging. Here, a porous molecularly woven fabric is constructed that features adaptive pores enabling the efficient dynamic separation of water isotopologues at room temperature (298 K).

A metal–organic framework (MOF)–pillar[5]arene hybrid can bind small molecules with long alkyl chains, such that single-crystal structures of the host–guest complexes can be obtained and therefore small molecular structures determined.

Supramolecular polymeric materials have exhibited attractive features such as self-healing, reversibility and stimuli-responsiveness but because of the weak bonding nature of most noncovalent interactions, constructing supramolecular polymer materials with high robustness remains challenging. Here, the authors describe the construction of highly robust stimuli-responsive supramolecular polymer networks by using only a tiny amount of metallacycles as the supramolecular crosslinkers.

Weaving purely organic molecular threads into two-dimensional patterns remains a formidable challenge. Now, driven by the formation of dative B–N bonds, a purely organic, two-dimensional and flawless woven polymer network has been prepared. In addition, free-standing monolayers of woven polymer nanosheets have been obtained through mechanical exfoliation.

Clusteroluminescence from nonconjugated luminogens relies on noncovalent through-space conjugation of electrons resulting in low luminescent efficiency and broad emission. Here the authors construct several nonconjugated luminogens to reveal the structure property relationship and demonstrate narrowband clusteroluminescence with high emission efficiency.

Despite its application in functional materials, covalent peptide modification and controlling peptide self-assembly remains challenging. Here the authors report a programmable supramolecular peptide by pillararene-based noncovalent interactions with multiple self-assembly morphologies and application in PDT.

Frameworks containing flexible macrocycle units provide opportunities in molecular recognition and separation. Here authors present MOFs with uniformly embedded pillar[5]arene that can recognise paraquat and 1,2,4,5-tetracyanobenzene in solution and selectively remove trace pyridine from toluene.

Controlling the self-assembly on noncovalent components is possible by suppressing entropy loss with templates but this is challenging for covalent components. Here the authors employed directing groups to endow purely covalent molecular building blocks with different conformations which favor the formation of specific self-assembled products.

Soft actuators bearing rapid responsiveness and large-scale actuation are desirable for many biomimetic applications. Here, Zhao et al.build a polymer actuator with a porous architecture, which allows a fast bending response at a timescale of seconds through absorbing a variety of solvent vapours.

The self-assembly of molecular knots in water is challenging. Here, authors report the self-assembly of a trefoil knot in water via imine condensation, without relying on external templates; the handedness of the trefoil knot is determined by the chirality of the bisamino precursor.

Incorporation of supramolecular macrocycles into porous organic polymers can increase uptake of guest molecules through host−guest interactions. Here the authors report a pillar[5]quinone derived multi-microporous organic polymer, which show a superior performance in radioactive iodomethane capture and storage.

Two metallacages containing Pt(II) phosphine centres bridged by organic donors are shown to display dynamic emission behaviour across a range of concentrations. At low concentrations, the individual cages emit. At high concentrations, or on introduction of additional solvents, aggregation occurs that manifests in colour-tunable fluorescence and white-light emission in THF.

Multifunctional nanomedicine platforms are highly promising for anticancer therapy. Here, the authors design polyrotaxane-based theranostic nanoparticles that combine targeted drug delivery with photothermal behaviour to exhibit potent anti-tumour effects in vivo.

It is challenging to design photosensitizers (PS) with high quantum yields generating singlet oxygen due to severe aggregation between the hydrophobic PSs. Here they develop organoplatinum(II) metallatocage-based PS to overcome these challenges and show excellent antitumor effect.

This Review compares the macrocycle-based host–guest chemistry in solution and in the solid state and illustrates related physical chemistry laws. Recent progress about applications of solid-state host–guest chemistry in the fields of adsorption, separation, optical materials and stimuli-responsive systems is also discussed.