Nature Chemistry Highlight: An alkylating agent is constantly consumed to fuel the formation of a self-assembled gel that exists far from equilibrium.
A vast array of different structures can be formed by exploiting reversible, multiple weak intermolecular interactions. The structures that are formed are, for the most part, stable at equilibrium. Inspiration for research into such self-assembled structures often comes from natural systems, but in reality these often exist far from equilibrium and require the constant input of chemical energy to remain assembled. Now, Jan van Esch and co-workers from Delft University of Technology have developed1 a gel- forming system that consumes a ‘chemical fuel’ to mimic this behaviour.
Our work on Dissipative Self-Assembly was reviewed as “hot paper” and highlighted in Nature Chemistry.