Porous materials formed by four self-construction processes

Multiple self-construction behavior of cyclic oligoesters is described. Rigid braces and elastic hinges are periodically incorporated into these cyclomers, which enables these rings to form various topological frameworks, such as holes, caves or cages with different sizes and shapes, through self-folding. Among them, the cave-type cyclomer self-assembles into nanotunnels and then forms porous materials via self-packing of these tunnels. This discovery provides a new perspective for the construction of novel materials aided by multiple supramolecular effects. In this work, the simplest rigid brace components and ones with soft hinges were chosen to construct cyclomers to confirm the supramolecular strategy.