Crown ethers, the first class of synthetic macrocycles, have been widely used as building blocks in the development of functional self-assemblies including molecular machines, supramolecular polymers, and sensors, albeit in the organic phase [
17-
26]. Recently, we and others found that crown ethers are an intriguing host for studying water-mediated non-covalent interactions [
27-
29]. In particular, benzo[21]crown-7 (C7) represents a new class of water-soluble crown macrocycles with high water solubility (4.21 mol/L, Table S1 in Supporting information). This value is higher than that of well-known water-soluble macrocycles (such as cucurbitu[
n]rils and cyclodextrins) [
30]. Insight into water−C7 interactions further led to the discovery of "structural water" for supramolecular adhesive materials [
27,
31,
32], reversing the Hofmeister effect [
33] and thus benefiting the communities of chemistry, materials and physics. Intriguingly, substituting one selenium (Se) atom in C7CN significantly enriches the hydration behavior of crown ether (
Scheme 1a). On the one hand, the selenide group is a poor HB acceptor [
34], the single Se atom exists in C7CN thus readily makes the original hydrophilic crown macrocycle becomes extremely hydrophobic (Table S1 in Supporting information). On the other hand, selenoxide, in contrast, is an excellent HB acceptor [
35]; hence, the crown ether comprising it has a higher water solubility [note: the H-bond distance of the selenoxide group (1.78 Å) is shorter than that of an ether (-O-) group (1.90 Å)] [
36]. Importantly, the transition between selenide and selenoixde is redox adaptive. Therefore, the site mutation of an oxygen atom in the crown ether to selenium endows redox-adaptive amphiphilicity to the crown macrocycle, which is unprecedented in previously reported macrocycles. Detailed water-solubility of diverse selenium-functionalized crown ether derivatives in Table S1. Moreover, selenium catalysis is an important area in organic synthesis, and various organic selenoxide/selenide catalysts have been reported [
37-
40]. Therefore, selenium-containing crown ether has fine control over hydration, redox-responsiveness, and catalysis, which is ideal for designing novel macrocyclic amphiphiles. However, thus far, in comparison to calixarenes [
6,
13], cucubiturils [
2,
14], cyclodextrins [
10-
12], and pillarenes [
6,
12-
14], crown ether-based macrocyclic amphiphiles have rarely been explored [
4,
5,
41]. Furthermore, investigation of selenium-containing crown ethers has been largely belittled in organic and solid phases [
42-
46], their aqueous behavior remains elusive.