Samenvatting
Solvents are fundamentally essential for the synthesis and processing of soft materials. Supramolecular polymers (SPs), an emerging class of soft materials, are usually stable in single and mixtures of poor solvents. In contrast to these preconceived notions, here we report the depolymerization of SPs in the mixture of two poor solvents. This surprising behavior was observed for well-known cationic perylene diimides (cPDIs) in the mixtures of water and amphiphilic organic solvents such as isopropanol (IPA). cPDIs form stable SPs in water and IPA but readily depolymerize into monomers in 50–70 vol% IPA containing water. This is due to the selective solvation of the π-surface of cPDIs by alkyl chains of IPA and ionic side chains by water, as evidenced by molecular dynamic simulations. Moreover, by systematically changing the ratio between water and amphiphilic organic solvent, we could achieve an unprecedented supramolecular polymerization both by increasing and decreasing the solvent polarity.
| Originele taal-2 | Engels |
|---|---|
| Pagina's (van-tot) | 5459-5466 |
| Aantal pagina's | 8 |
| Tijdschrift | Angewandte Chemie - International Edition |
| Volume | 60 |
| Nummer van het tijdschrift | 10 |
| DOI's | |
| Status | Gepubliceerd - 1 mrt. 2021 |
Financiering
We acknowledge Prof. E. W. Meijer for fruitful discussions. K. V. R. acknowledge SERB (Grant no. ECR/2018/001222), government of India for the financial support. S. K. thanks the CSIR, India for the junior research fellowship. M. F. J. M. acknowledges NWO for funding (TOP-PUNT Grant 10018944). D. S. thanks the MHRD, government of India for the research fellowship. This work used the resources of the Supercomputing facility of Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM), Government of India and supported by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), Pune. R. S. thanks the UGC, India for the junior research fellowship.