Generation of a Chiral Giant Micelle

Over the past few years, chiral supramolecular assemblies have been successfully used for recognition, sensing and enantioselective transformations. Several approaches are available to control chirality of discrete assemblies (e.g., cages and capsules), but few are efficient in assuring chirality for micellar aggregates. Optically active amino acid-derived surfactants are commonly used to generate chiral spherical micelles. To circumvent this limitation, we benefited from the uniaxial growth of spherical micelles into long cylindrical micelles usually called wormlike or giant micelles, upon the addition of cosolutes. This paper describes the unprecedented formation of chiral giant micelles in aqueous solutions of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) upon increasing addition of enantiopure sodium salt of 1,1'-bi-2-naphthol (Na-binaphtholate) as a cosolute. Depending on the concentrations of CTAB and Na-binaphtholate, chiral gel-like systems are obtained. The transition from spherical to giant micellar structures was probed using rheology, cryo-transmission electron microscopy, polarimetry, and electronic circular dichroism (CD). CD can be effectively used to monitor the incorporation of Na-binaphtholate into the micelle palisade as well as to determine its transition to giant micellar structures. Our approach expands the scope for chirality induction in micellar aggregates bringing the possibility to generate "smart" chiral systems and an alternative asymmetric chiral environment to perform enantioselective transformations.