Controlling Aqueous Self‐Assembly Mechanisms by Hydrophobic Interactions |
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| Authors: | Tobias Rudolph Naveen Kumar Allampally Gustavo Fernández Felix H. Schacher |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Laboratory of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Humboldtstr.?10, 07743 Jena (Germany) and Jena Center for Soft Matter (JCSM), Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Philosophenweg?7, 07743 Jena (Germany);2. Institut für Organische Chemie and Center for Nanosystems, Chemistry, Universit?t Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg (Germany) |
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| Abstract: | We report an innovative template‐assisted synthetic protocol for the selective functionalization of terminal triple bonds in oligophenyleneethynylenes (OPE) by pre‐organization in aqueous solution. By this approach, three new OPE‐based bolaamphiphiles substituted with hydrophilic poly(2‐ethyl‐2‐oxazoline) (PEtOx) chains of different length have been synthesized. The chain length was observed to strongly influence the aqueous supramolecular polymerization: bolaamphiphiles with longer hydrophilic chains aggregate into spherical nanoparticles in a stepwise fashion, whereas 2D anisotropic platelets are formed cooperatively if shorter PEtOx chains are used. Our results demonstrate that hydrophobic interactions can be strong enough to trigger cooperative effects in aqueous self‐assembly processes. |
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| Keywords: | amphiphilic systems cooperativity π ‐conjugated systems polymers self‐assembly |
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