Molecular gels are formed by the self-assembly of low-molecular weight compounds by weak non-covalent interactions and thus, they may be easily disassembled in response to external stimuli. Chemically sensitive gels can be prepared by introducing in the molecular design functional groups that may interact either by covalent or non-covalent forces with other molecules present in the medium. Functional molecular gels have been reported that are sensitive to acids, bases, ions, redox-active compounds, neutral species, reactive compounds and enzymes. Here we present a broad revision of the different chemical inputs that can be used to tune gel properties through some appealing application-based selected examples.

Supramolecular gels have attracted an enormous amount of interest from scientists in the last decade because of their potential applications proposed up to now in fields of great social impact like biomedicine or materials science. However, their potential in organic transformations and catalysis has been only scarcely explored. In this review we describe the state-of-the-art as well as the contribution of our group to the field of reactive and catalytic supramolecular gels.