Tailor-making of desired assemblies from well-designed monomers: use of calix[4]arene conformers as building blocks

Abstract

Water-soluble, conformationally-immobilized calix[4]arenes with cone and 1,3-alternate conformations (cone-1 and 1,3-alternate-1, respectively) have been synthesized. In aqueous solution cone-1, with a cone-shaped surface, aggregated into micelles with 20–40 Å diameter whereas 1,3-alternate-1, with a cylindrical surface, could not form such aggregates for concentrations up to 0.010 mol dm^–3.