Vesicles have been a versatile topic of research in chemistry ever since the discovery that, besides phospholipids, synthetic amphiphiles can also form molecular bilayers enclosing a small aqueous compartment. Non-covalent interactions of receptors and ligands or hosts and guests at vesicle surfaces resemble recognition processes at biological membranes, including cell recognition, adhesion and fusion. Molecular recognition at membranes is often mediated by a multivalent instead of a monovalent interaction. This tutorial review describes the basics as well as the latest developments in biomimetic supramolecular chemistry of bilayer vesicles. We describe how molecular recognition can mediate the interaction between vesicles, and how the biomimetic supramolecular chemistry of vesicles furthers our understanding of biological membranes.

It's all about polymers! Polymers play a key role in the patterning and functionalization of surfaces by microcontact printing. Polymers are versatile stamps, inks and substrates and microcontact printing can provide microstructured polymer surfaces in a single printing step.

Gold is a key metal in nanotechnology but ligands are required for surface stabilization and functionalization. This tutorial review highlights the recent progress from organosulfur to N-heterocyclic carbene surface ligands for gold.

N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) represent a leading class of ligands in organometallic chemistry, but have been rarely exploited as stabilizers for metal nanoparticles (NPs). We report the first example of NHC stabilized Pd-NPs that demonstrate long term stability. These NHC Pd-NPs were synthesized by a facile ligand exchange protocol using rationally designed long chained NHCs (LC-NHCs). Furthermore, we demonstrate that the surface modification of Pd-NPs results in significant chemoselectivity in a model reaction.