Issue 31, 2019

Organobase triggered controlled supramolecular ring opening polymerization and 2D assembly

Abstract

A carboxylic acid appended naphthalene-diimide (NDI) derivative spontaneously aggregates in decane to generate a kinetically controlled product with irregular fibrillar morphology. By fine-tuning the sample preparation conditions, the carboxylic acid group can be trapped by intra-molecular H-bonds with the adjacent imide carbonyl, which retards the spontaneous aggregation. In the presence of a catalytic amount of a non-nucleophilic organic base (DBU or DMAP), the meta-stable monomer exhibits supramolecular polymerization through a thermodynamically controlled pathway involving simultaneous H-bonding and π-stacking and generates ultra-thin 2D nano-sheets. DMAP/DBU helps in ring-opening of the intra-molecularly H-bonded monomer and in situ breeds the free acid, which, beyond a critical concentration, initiates controlled supramolecular ring opening polymerization (SROP) via the chain-growth mechanism. The 2D polymer acts as a macro-initiator for subsequent two cycles of SROP and produces laterally extended ultra-thin nano-sheets.

Graphical abstract: Organobase triggered controlled supramolecular ring opening polymerization and 2D assembly

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
20 apr 2019
Accepted
26 iyn 2019
First published
27 iyn 2019
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2019,10, 7345-7351

Organobase triggered controlled supramolecular ring opening polymerization and 2D assembly

A. Chakraborty, G. Ghosh, D. S. Pal, S. Varghese and S. Ghosh, Chem. Sci., 2019, 10, 7345 DOI: 10.1039/C9SC01972C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements