Self‐Assembly of Amphiphilic Anthracene‐Functionalized β‐Cyclodextrin (CD‐AN) through Multi‐Micelle Aggregation. Issue 12 (4th May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhang, Yuannan; Xu, Hongjie; Ma, Xiaodong; Shi, Zixing; Yin, Jie; Jiang, Xuesong
• Is Part Of: Macromolecular rapid communications. Volume 37:Issue 12(2016)
• Page Start: 998
• Page End: 1004
• Publication Date: 2016-05-04
• Subjects: anthracenes -- cyclodextrins -- multi‐micelle aggregations -- self‐assemblies; Macromolecules -- Periodicals; Polymers -- Periodicals; Chemistry -- Periodicals; 547.705
• DOI: 10.1002/marc.201600161
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1022-1336

Abstract

Abstract : Multi‐micelle aggregation (MMA) mechanism is widely acknowledged to explicate large spherical micelles self‐assembly, but the process of MMA during self‐assembly is hard to observe. Herein, a novel kind of strong, regular microspheres fabricated from self‐assembly of amphiphilic anthracene‐functionalized β‐cyclodextrin (CD‐AN) via Cu(I)‐catalyzed azide‐alkyne click reactions is reported. The obtained CD‐AN amphiphiles can self‐assemble in water from primary core–shell micelles to secondary aggregates with the diameter changing from several tens nm to around 600–700 nm via MMA process according to the images of scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy as well as the dynamic light scattering measurements, followed by further crosslinking through photo‐dimerization of anthracene. What merits special attention is that such photo‐crosslinked self‐assemblies are able to disaggregate reversibly into primary nanoparticles when changing the solution conditions, which is benefited from the designed regular structure of CD‐AN and the rigid ranging of anthracene during assembly, thus confirming the process of MMA. Abstract : Designed amphiphilic anthracene‐functionalized β‐cyclodextrin can self‐assemble via multi‐micelle aggregation (MMA) from primary core–shell micelles to secondary aggregates, and reversibly disaggregate into primary units even if the whole system has been crosslinked. The process of MMA can be observed in virtue of the fixed well‐defined primary structure, resulting in disaggregation instead of disassembly in this system.