New macrocycle molecules based on Schiff-base reaction have been attracted lots of interest in recent years. These macrocycle molecules play important role not only in the research fields of chemical sensors, functional materials etc., but also in the research field of self-assembly. In this paper, the synthetic strategies of macrocycle molecules will be studied from the results of macrocycle synthesis with templates and without templates. It was found that not only metal ions with suitable diameters and conformations could be as templates for construction of macrocycle molecules, but also the strong intramolecular hydrogen bonds could prompt the formation of macocycle molecules. The problems and development direction of macrocycle molecules based on Schiff-base reaction are also presented.

Key words: macrocycle molecule, schiff-base reaction, template, hydrogen bond