Molecular assembly and chemical reaction are the two most important approaches to creating new materials. The well-established field of chemical synthesis has developed many effective control methods in past centuries. Beginning only a few decades ago, the field of molecular assembly is much younger than that of chemical synthesis, thus the former can learn some control methods from the latter. Catalysis plays an indispensable role in chemical engineering to meet the demands of high product selectivity and high yield. With respect to molecular assembly, although methods of self-assembly and field-assisted assembly have been well developed, so far the “catalysed-assembly” method is almost unknown. Although some experimental research studies may be applied, this concept of catalysed-assembly has not yet drawn great attention, nor has it been addressed explicitly.

Prof. Zhong-Qun Tian’s group of XMU proposed an alternative approach, inspired by catalysis, to examine and describe some molecular assembly processes. A new term, “catassembly,” is suggested to refer to the increase in the rate and control of a molecular assembly process. This term combines the words “catalysis” and “assembly,” and identifiably retains the Greek root “cat-” of catalysis. The corresponding verb is “catassemble” and the noun is “catassembler”, referring to the “helper” species. Catassembly in molecular assembly is a concept that is analogous to catalysis in chemical synthesis. With the development of catassembly, numerous opportunities will emerge in the field of molecular assembly and thus enhance our understanding of the assembly mechanisms. This approach will promote the systems chemistry approach, and may pave the way toward new discoveries of highly complex functional chemical systems and result in new contributions to the chemical, materials and life sciences. (Chem. Soc. Rev., 2014, 43, 399–411）