Aggregation and self-coiling of organic molecules brought about by hydrophobic-lipophilic interactions

Hydrophobic - lipophilic interaction (HLI) is one of the most important non - covalent interactions. Aggregation and self - coiling of organic molecul es in polar solvent media are mainly promoted by HLI. In the past twenty ye ars, we have studied HLI - driven aggregation and self - coiling of a varie ty of organic molecules, which include linear aliphatic and aromatic carbox ylates, sulfonates, phosphates, aromatic and heterocyclic systems, etc. Fac tors which affect the aggregating and self - coiling tendencies of organic molecules have been systematically investigated. These include solvent effe cts, salt effects, structural effects such as molecular shape, linked - up effect, chain - length effect, the alternating - CF2CH2 - chain effect, the hydroxyl - group effect, a special salt effect for ESAg formation, etc. Ou r efforts have led to the establishment of a number of new concepts, e.g., coaggregation, deaggregation, electrostatically stabilized aggregation, nei ghboring - moiety - assisted chain - foldability effect; etc. The results h ave also been successfully applied to various reactions such as HLI - drive n electron transfer, energy transfer and large - ring synthesis and to a pa rtial interpretation of why some molecules are the culprits of atherosclero sis. This paper briefly describes our main research results.