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Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water
Published on: August 2, 2012
Tuning of Morphology by Chirality in Self-Assembled Structures of Bis(Urea) Amphiphiles in Water
Filippo Tosi1, José Augusto Berrocal1, Marc C A Stuart1,2
1Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
We present the synthesis and self-assembly of a chiral bis(urea) amphiphile and show that chirality offers a remarkable level of control towards different morphologies. Upon self-assembly in water, the molecular-scale chiral information is translated to the mesoscopic level. Both enantiomers of the amphiphile self-assemble into chiral twisted ribbons with opposite handedness, as supported by Cryo-TEM and circular dichroism (CD) measurements. The system presents thermo-responsive aggregation behavior and combined transmittance measurements, temperature-dependent UV, CD, TEM, and micro-differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) show that a ribbon-to-vesicles transition occurs upon heating. Remarkably, chirality allows easy control of morphology as the self-assembly into distinct aggregates can be tuned by varying the enantiomeric excess of the amphiphile, giving access to flat sheets, helical ribbons, and twisted ribbons.
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