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Updated: May 4, 2026

Engineering Molecular Recognition with Bio-mimetic Polymers on Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes
Published on: January 10, 2017
Biomimetic superhelical conducting microfibers with homochirality for enantioselective sensing
Wenjun Zou1, Yong Yan, Jin Fang
1National Center for Nanoscience and Technology , Beijing 100190, China.
Abstract:
Chiral amplification and discrimination are great challenges in both scientific and technological research fields such as chemical synthesis, chiral catalysis, and biomedicine. By mimicking protein superstructures in nature, chiral conducting polyaniline (PANI) molecules induced by chiral dopants were self-assembled to ultra-ordered superhelical microfibers. The induced homochirality is observed to be amplified into different hierarchies, from chiral molecules to helical nanostructures, and to superhelical microstructures. Furthermore, both experimental and theoretical results indicated that the gas sensor made from a single PANI helical microfiber showed enantioselective discrimination to chiral aminohexane, giving it great potential for applications in online chiral discrimination.
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