Issue 48, 2017

Self-assembly of water-soluble silver nanoclusters: superstructure formation and morphological evolution

Abstract

Supramolecular self-assembly, based on non-covalent interactions, has been employed as an efficient approach to obtain various functional materials from nanometer-sized building blocks, in particular, [Ag6(mna)6]6−, mna = mercaptonicotinate (Ag6-NC). A challenging issue is how to modulate the self-assembly process through regulating the relationship between building blocks and solvents. Herein, we report the controlled self-assembly of hexanuclear silver nanoclusters into robust multilayer vesicles in different solvents, DMSO, CH3CN, EG and MeOH. Their unique luminescence enables them to be bifunctional probes to sense Fe3+ and DL-dithiothreitol (DTT). By protonating the Ag6-NC to Ag6-H-NC using hydrochloric acid (HCl), the multilayer vesicles survive in aprotic solvents, DMSO and CH3CN, but are transformed to nanowires in protic solvents, water, EG and MeOH. Our results demonstrated that the solvent-bridged H-bond plays a key role in the evolution of the morphologies from vesicles to nanowires. Moreover, the nanowires could further hierarchically self-assemble in water into hydrogels with high water content (99.5%), and with remarkable mechanical strength and self-healing properties. This study introduces a robust cluster-based building block in a supramolecular self-assembly system and reveals the significance of aprotic and protic solvents for the modulation of the morphologies of cluster-based aggregates.

Graphical abstract: Self-assembly of water-soluble silver nanoclusters: superstructure formation and morphological evolution

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Aug 2017
Accepted
11 Nov 2017
First published
13 Nov 2017

Nanoscale, 2017,9, 19191-19200

Self-assembly of water-soluble silver nanoclusters: superstructure formation and morphological evolution

J. Shen, Z. Wang, D. Sun, G. Liu, S. Yuan, M. Kurmoo and X. Xin, Nanoscale, 2017, 9, 19191 DOI: 10.1039/C7NR06359H

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, 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 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