Aida has also been a leader and advocate for addressing critical environmental issues caused by plastic waste and microplastics in the oceans, soil, and food supply, through the development of dynamic, responsive, healable, reorganizable, and adaptive supramolecular polymers and related soft materials.
[4] After completing his doctoral studies, Aida was immediately appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Synthetic Chemistry at the University of Tokyo.
From 1996 to 1999, Aida served as a researcher in the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) PRESTO Fields and Reactions Project.
He reported the first example of this non-covalent polymerization by designing an amphiphilic porphyrin that spontaneously forms a 1D cofacial assembly in water as a prototype supramolecular polymer.
[16] In addition to fundamental contributions to the understanding of supramolecular systems, he has promoted their widespread use by developing materials for a wide range of applications.
He utilized immortal polymerization to synthesize oligo(ethylene glycol)-appended amphiphilic porphyrin and confirmed its 1D assembly in aqueous media.
Aida also found that the supramolecular polymerization of chiral amphiphilic hexabenzocoronenes proceeds in a one-handed helical manner via the majority rule.
[13] This work was further extended to the development of a redox-active oligo(o-phenylene) helix[22] and, together with Professor Minghua Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mirror-symmetry broken helical fibers consisting of an achiral component that serve as a chiral scaffold for transition metal-catalyzed asymmetric reactions.
Representative examples include (1) "bucky gels", carbon nanotubes physically crosslinked by ionic liquids[25] and the use of this technology for graphite exfoliation to graphene,[26] and the fabrication of the first metal-free stretchable electronics[27][28] and battery-driven dry actuators[29] for manufacturing mobile Braille devices (2) "aqua materials", highly water-rich (organic content of 0.1–0.2% for ultralow dependency on fossil resources) hydrogels anomalously having significant mechanical robustness[30] or geometrical anisotropy[31][32] (3) ATP-responsive nanotubular carriers composed of chaperonin proteins, a biomolecular machine[33][34] (4) non-crosslinked photoactuators[35] (5) ferroelectric columnar liquid crystals[36] (6) mechanically robust yet self-healable polymer glass[37] (7) self-healable high-temperature porous organic materials[38] (8) optoelectrically rewritable core-shell columnar liquid crystals with an AND logic gate operation[39] (9) an elastic metal–organic crystal with a densely catenated backbone[40] (10) densely fluorinated nanochannels with ultrafast water permeation and salt rejection, formed by the stacking of macrocycles[41] His mechanically robust polymer glass which is self-healable at ambient temperatures, poly(ether thiourea),[37] is notable as it dispelled a long-term preconception that mechanical robustness and self-healing abilities of polymers are mutually exclusive.
In addition to his pioneering contribution to the field of supramolecular polymerization, he published seminal papers on photo-driven chiral molecular pincers that can deform guest molecules using light,[42][43] subnanoscale hydrophobic modulation of salt bridges in aqueous media,[44] and the first carbon nitride thin film.
Scientific output and professional service Aida has published over 400 peer-reviewed research papers, review articles, and books, and more than 90 of his former group members now hold tenured academic positions worldwide.
Aida was a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Institute of Molecular Functional Materials of the University of Hong Kong (2010–2018).
Aida has given a number of lectures at Gordon Research Conferences (Self-Assembly and Supramolecular Chemistry, 2013,[51] 2019;[52] Artificial Molecular Switches & Motors, 2015,[53] 2017;[54] Bioinspired Materials, 2018).
[59] He was elected as an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023 for pioneering contributions to the initiation, fundamental progress, and conceptual expansion of supramolecular polymerization and for his leadership and advocacy in addressing critical environmental issues caused by plastic waste and microplastics in the oceans, soil, and food supply, through the development of dynamic, responsive, healable, reorganizable, and adaptive supramolecular polymers and related soft materials.