ABSTRACT
The creation of complex hollow nanostructures with precise control over size and shape represents a great challenge in supramolecular soft materials. Here, we have further developed a bioinspired methodology for the formation of aqueous nanotubes of well-defined dimensions and pore coating through the self-assembly of amphiphiles that are chemically programmed with complementary nucleobases. These nanotubes are endowed with a hydrophobic lumen, whose diameter can be expanded as a function of the monomer length, in which apolar dyes can be efficiently encapsulated.
ABSTRACT
Despite the central importance of aqueous amphiphile assemblies in science and industry, the size and shape of these nano-objects is often difficult to control with accuracy owing to the non-directional nature of the hydrophobic interactions that sustain them. Here, using a bioinspired strategy that consists of programming an amphiphile with shielded directional Watson-Crick hydrogen-bonding functions, its self-assembly in water was guided toward a novel family of chiral micelle nanotubes with partially filled lipophilic pores of about 2â nm in diameter. Moreover, these tailored nanotubes are successfully demonstrated to extract and host molecules that are complementary in size and chemical affinity.