There is no doubt that the field of artificial membrane transport using synthetic ionophores has advanced remarkably in the past 15 years due primarily to the synthesis of new ionophores. Even though the theoretical framework substantially predated this activity, the merging of theory with transport experiment has often been sketchy. The purpose of this outline has been to examine key examples to illustrate the underlying principles and to suggest how experimental variables dominate the results obtained. To a very good approximation the assumption of a "diffusion" regime is often justified,...

The Supramolecular Compounds refer to organised multi-molecular assemblies and associated phenomena. The stability and the properties of these compounds strongly involve structural three-dimensional (3D) information. The crystal itself can be considered as a giant supermolecule. Thus, a thorough understanding of crystal structures and crystal growth provides a unique information on the intermolecular interactions. Indeed, each crystal reflects in a particular way the recognition properties of molecules. More so, modern crystallography allows to study in detail two or three-component...