Role in Self-assembly
The similarity in strength between hydrogen bonding and aurophilic interaction has proven to be a convenient tool in the field of polymer chemistry. Much research has been conducted on self-assembling supermolecular structures, both those that aggregate by aurophilicity alone and those that contain both aurophilic and hydrogen-bonding interactions. An important and exploitable property of aurophilic interactions relevant to their supermolecular chemistry is that while both inter- and intramolecular interactions are possible, intermolecular aurophilic linkages are comparatively weak and easily broken by solvation; most complexes that exhibit intramolecular aurophilic interactions retain such moieties in solution.
Similar metallophilic interactions exist for other heavy metals, such as mercury and can also be observed between atoms of different elements. Examples include Hg(II)-Au(I), Hg(II)-Pt(II), and Hg(II)-Pd(II). In accordance with theoretical calculations, which predict a local maximum for relevant relativistic effects for gold atoms, none of these other interactions are as strong as aurophilicity.
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