Chirally Twisted Ultrathin Polydopamine Nanoribbons: Synthesis and Spontaneous Assembly of Silver Nanoparticles on Them |
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Authors: | Anand Kumar Awasthi Somnath D. Bhagat Reshma Ramakrishnan Dr. Aasheesh Srivastava |
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Affiliation: | Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal, India |
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Abstract: | Polydopamine (PDA) is a synthetic polymeric material with immense potential in biomedical and surface functionalization applications. Herein, we have screened self-assemblies formed by Phenylalanine-based amphiphiles (Phe-AMPs) as soft templates for preparing chiral PDA nanostructures. Our study revealed that the amphiphile 2 endowed with a primary amine residue afforded chirally-twisted ultrathin nanoribbons of PDA under optimized conditions. The chirality at the Phe residue of 2 modulated the twist-chirality of the PDA nanoribbons; the l -2 resulted in nanoribbons with right-handed twist, whereas the d -2 induced a left-handed twist to the ribbons. The racemic mixture of these two amphiphiles produced flat, achiral tapes. The PDA ribbon thickness was ≈5.86±0.40 nm, whereas its width and length were ≈133.5±3.2 nm and >5000 nm, respectively. Upon dialysis, hollow PDA nanotubes were obtained due to curling of the PDA nanoribbons. These PDA-nanoarchitectures were employed to spontaneously form and assemble Ag-nanoparticles along the edges of the PDA nanoribbons. In this work we are reporting chirality controlled synthesis of PDA nanostructures for the first time. |
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Keywords: | chiral nanoribbons and nanotubes Helical silver nanoparticles Phenylalanine Polydopamine Templated polymerization |
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