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Updated: Mar 26, 2026

Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water
Published on: August 2, 2012
Isomer differentiation through supramolecular self-assembly in microdroplets of milliseconds life-time
Ran Qiu1, Jiamu Sun1, Xin Zhang1
1Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China. hluo@pku.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Supramolecular recognition of thymine (or its analogs) with various central cations can form magic number clusters. Dual nano-ESI via theta tip emitters was used to on-line synthesize clusters. Even thermodynamically unstable clusters can be detected by MS thanks to the very short life-time (∼ms) of the generated microdroplets. By recording characteristic cluster distributions, isomers can be clearly differentiated in a novel "bottom-up" way. Theoretical calculations were performed to explain the MS results.
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