Organic macrocycle-polyoxometalate hybrids

Polyoxometalates (POMs) as inorganic polyanionic clusters with abundant structural fashions at the nanometer level display diverse applications in aspects of chemistry, materials science, medicine, and so forth. Organic macrocycles (OMCs) are formed by the connection of the organic repeating unit in a ring-like or cave-like style and generally possess pore at the center of the molecule, which are important building blocks in many sorts of assembled materials. The combination of these two types of species not only leads to the formation of novel organic–inorganic hybrids with unique structures but also brings enhanced functionalities, resulting in many interesting achievements in the fields of OMC chemistry, POM chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and materials science. It is necessary and emergent to make a comprehensive overview of recent advances to better illustrate the development of OMC-POM hybrids, as well as its shape to come, which is still absent up to now. In the present review, through analyzing the structural characteristics of POMs and OMCs, the binding interactions between them are discussed, giving possible combination models in OMC-POM hybrids. The crystalline adducts of OMC-POM hybrids give detailed and credible structural information, which benefits the understanding of the assembled patterns of OMC-POM-based soft materials. Moreover, applications of OMC-POM hybrids, especially those with definite structures, are summarized, as well as the future developments of this field.