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With the rapid progress in the development of supramolecular soft materials, examples of low-molecularweight gelators (LMWGs) with the ability to immobilise both water and organic solvents by the same structural scaffold are very limited. In this paper, we report the development of pyrene-containing peptide-based ambidextrous gelators (AGs) with the ability to efficiently gelate both organic and aqueous solvents. The organo- and hydrogelation efficiencies of these gelators are in the range 0.7–1.1% w/v in various organic solvents and 0.5–5% w/v in water at certain acidic pH values (pH 2.0–4.0). Moreover, for the first time, AGs have been utilised to prepare single-walled carbonnanotube (SWNT)-included soft nanocomposites in both hydro- and organogel matrices. The influence of different non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic, π–π and van der Waals interactions in self-assembled gelation has been studied in detail by circular dichroism, FTIR, variable-temperature NMR, 2D NOESY and luminescence spectroscopy. Interestingly, the presence of the pyrene moiety in the structure rendered these AGs intrinsically fluorescent, which was quenched upon successful integration of the SWNTs within the gel. The prepared hydroand organogels along with their SWNT-integrated nanocomposites are thermoreversible in nature. The supramolecular morphologies of the dried gels and SWNT–gel nanocomposites have been studied by transmission electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy and polarising optical microscopy, which confirmed the presence of three-dimensional self-assembled fibrillar networks (SAFINs) as well as the integrated SWNTs. Importantly, rheological studies revealed that the inclusion of SWNTs within the ambidextrous gels improved the mechanical rigidity of the resulting soft nanocomposites up to 3.8-fold relative to the native gels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foldectures are typically formed from foldamers carrying a Boc group at the N‐terminus, which creates a network of N−H⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bonds linking adjacent foldamers in head‐to‐tail packing modes. Although much less sterically demanding, cyclopropanoyl amides feature additionally an α‐proton known to form Cα−H⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bonds with electron‐rich partners. Experimental and computational investigations of the tractable model system revealed that the strength of this secondary noncovalent interaction was sufficient to influence self‐assembly of foldamers. More information can be found in the Full Paper by R. W. Driver, M.‐H. Baik, and H.‐S. Lee et al. on page 2226. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marseille–Provence is the European Capital of Culture in 2013. In this issue two articles from the Marseille‐based team Chirosciences analyze the role of imidazole alcohol hydrogen bonding in the nucleophlicity of dyad models (see the Full Paper by J. Leclaire, D. Bourissou, F. Fotiadu et al. on page 11301 ff.) and describe a facile synthesis and assemblies of tetraalkylporphyrins in two and three dimensions (see the Full Paper by Y. Kikkawa, T. S. Balaban et al. on page 11293 ff.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]