Issue 2, 2016

The fabrication of a supra-amphiphile for dissipative self-assembly

Abstract

Dissipative self-assembly is a challenging but attractive field of supramolecular science, because it generally concerns complex systems but is more close to the self-assembly of living bodies. In this article, we realized dissipative self-assembly by coupling a supra-amphiphile with a chemical oscillator. The supra-amphiphile was fabricated with iodine and a double hydrophilic block copolymer containing PEG segments, as the non-covalent interaction between PEG and iodine could turn PEG hydrophobic, leading to the formation of the supra-amphiphile. The self-assembly and disassembly of the supra-amphiphile could be controlled by varying the concentration of iodine. Therefore, the dissipative self-assembly of the supra-amphiphile was realized when it was coupled with the IO3–NH3OH+–OH chemical oscillator, which was able to produce iodine periodically. Meanwhile, the kinetic data of the self-assembly and disassembly of the supra-amphiphile could be estimated by the theoretical simulation of the chemical oscillations. This line of research promotes the self-assembly of supra-amphiphiles one step forward from thermodynamic statics to a dissipative system, and also suggests a new strategy to investigate the kinetics of stimuli-responsive molecular self-assembly.

Graphical abstract: The fabrication of a supra-amphiphile for dissipative self-assembly

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
15 Oct 2015
Accepted
28 Oct 2015
First published
28 Oct 2015
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 1151-1155

The fabrication of a supra-amphiphile for dissipative self-assembly

G. Wang, B. Tang, Y. Liu, Q. Gao, Z. Wang and X. Zhang, Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 1151 DOI: 10.1039/C5SC03907J

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