Research advances of polypseudorotaxanes

Polypseudorotaxanes have attracted great interest in the past twenty years, due to their potential applications in the fabrication of stimuli-responsive materials, self-healing materials, molecular machines and fluorescent sensors. Depending on the location of the pseudorotaxane unit, polypseudorotaxanes can be mainly divided into three types: main-chain polypseudorotaxanes, side-chain polypseudorotaxanes, and others (such as branched and crosslinked polypseudorotaxanes). In this review, the recent advances of these three types of polypseudorotaxanes constructed by supramolecular macrocycles, such as crown ether, cyclodextrin, calixarene, cucurbituril, and pillararene are reviewed, and their future developments are also briefly prospected.