The large binding energies obtained from the DFT calculations provide an understanding of the experimentally observed greater stability of the guests bound to the host-functionalized surface versus HGC binding in solution. Thus, conditions need to be developed to actively remove the guests from the surfacebound hosts for recycling purposes. The desorption of guests under competitive HGC formation in solution has been reported, and this strategy was also employed to show that guest binding to the 1 modified gold substrates could be controlled under specific conditions.