Flower‐Like Superstructures: Structural Features, Applications and Future Perspectives

• Published in: Chemical record Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 257 - 283
• Main Authors: Bhosale, Sheshanath V., Al Kobaisi, Mohammad, Jadhav, Ratan W., Jones, Lathe A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-02-2021
• Subjects: artificial flowers; Catalysis; Drug delivery; electron microscopy; Flower-like assembly; Flowers; Mimicry; organic-metal hybrid materials; self-assembly; Superstructures; artificial flowers; self-assembly; electron microscopy; Flower-like assembly; organic-metal hybrid materials
• ISSN: 1527-8999; 1528-0691
• DOI: 10.1002/tcr.202000129

Mimicking natural objects such as flowers, is an objective of scientists not only because of their attractive appearance, but also to understand the natural phenomena that underpin real world applications such as drug delivery, enzymatic reactions, electronics, and catalysis, to name few. This article reviews the types, preparation methods, and structural features of flower‐like structures along with their key applications in various fields. We discuss the various types of flower‐like structures composed of inorganic, organic‐inorganic hybrid, inorganic‐protein, inorganic‐enzyme and organic compositions. We also discuss recent development in flower‐like structures prepared by self‐assembly approaches. Finally, we conclude our review with the future prospects of flower‐like micro‐structures in key fields, being biomedicine, sensing and catalysis.
In this review, we described general approaches towards supramolecular self‐assembly of organic, metal‐organic, metal‐protein, metal‐enzyme hybrid materials for the formation of flower‐like superstructures. These flowers shown to be high surface‐to‐volume ration and further used for various applications such as catalysis, drug delivery to name few. We give brief overview in the mimicking natural flowers via artificial‐way by controlling various stimulus is discussed.