We report new hybrid organic-inorganic materials, based on macrocyclic receptors 1-3 self-organized in tubular superstructures prepared by sol-gel process. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and NMR spectroscopic analyses demonstrate that the self-organization by hydrogen bonding of organogel superstructures of 2 and 3 were preserved in the hybrid materials throughout the sol-gel process. The molecular arrangement of heteroditopic receptors defines a particularly attractive functional transport device for both cation (tubular macrocycles) and anion (sandwich-urea) directional-diffusion transport mechanism in the hybrid membrane material. This system has been employed successfully to design a solid dense membrane, functioning as an ion-powered adenosine triphosphate (ATP(2)(-)) pump, and illustrates how a self-organized hybrid material performs interesting and potentially useful functions.

This paper describes the controlled self-selection and quantitative parallel amplification of the homonuclear grid architectures derived from the same ligand 1 of different conformational geometries and Cu+ and Ag+ metal ions of different coordination behavior and ionic size.