Supramolecular self-assembly with precisely control and potential biological application

Li, Heng (2022). Supramolecular self-assembly with precisely control and potential biological application. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Self-assembly is one of the most interesting phenomena in the field of life science. Inspired by life system, taking advantage of non-covalent interaction to construct artificial self-assembly systems with different functions has become a hot topic in interdisciplinary research. This work is devoted to the design and synthesis of new building blocks based on BCPs or amino acid to build 1D chiral and 2D platelet micelles with controllable morphology and exploring the potentially biology and optoelectronics application.
In chapter 2 and 3, block copolymers of PPV-b-P2VP were employed as building units for supramolecular self-assembly. By the introduction of chlorine, morphological transformation from rod-like micelles to diamond-like micelles was achieved by the thermally induced nucleation process that lets the kinetically trapped 1D nanostructures to transform as the 2D nanostructures in the thermodynamic state. Then the crystalline groups as TIPS group was introduced into the copolymers, which caused the morphology transition from 2D square to rectangular or rod-like micelles with controllable aspect ratios. These nanomaterials with controllable shapes that possess fluorescent and semiconducting properties could be potential candidates for biological and optoelectronics applications.
Chapter 4 and 5 describes the study of amino acid derivatives based on thiophene core with different amino acid arms as building blocks. After supramolecular self-assembly, the helices with controllable chirality and 2D rectangular microsheets were obtained. In addition, by utilizing co- assembly, helicity appearance and inversion were observed for the TDAP-MA system, which was used to provide a feasible detection approach for melamine.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):