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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Self-assembling Morphologies Obtained from Helical Polycarbodiimide Copolymers and Their Triazole Derivatives
Published on: February 7, 2017
Controllable growth of one-dimensional chiral nanostructures from an achiral molecule
Zicheng Zuo1, Huibiao Liu, Xiaodong Yin
1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science (BNLMS), CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
One achiral molecule of thioxanthone-anthracene (TX-A) is able to self-assemble into chiral nanowires by tuning the solvent with different polarity. Left- and right-handed nanowires with helix structure can be produced from chloroform and acetic ester solution of TX-A respectively. The SEM and TEM images confirm the formation of the helical nanowires. The results indicate that the solvent polarity has great influence in controlling of the self-assembly of organic molecules. The growth process demonstrates a promising pathway to investigate the self-assembling from achiral organic molecules to chiral aggregations.
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