Nanoscale amphiphiles

One of the most comprehensive examinations of dendritic nanoscale amphiphiles involved structures that mimicked traditional surfactants. This work was reported in a thesis by van Hest et al. [126] [166]. In this study, extensive hydrophobic tails were precisely constructed by the living anionic polymerization of styrene, followed by termination with a primary amine function. Dendronization of these amine functionalized poly(styrenes) produced focal point functionalized, hydrophobically substituted PPI dendrons, as illustrated later (Figure 23). More specifically, the living polystyrene anion is terminated with ethyleneoxide, thus providing a hydroxyl terminated poly(styrene) with... 

Micelles the mostly spherical nanoscale aggregates formed by amphiphilic compounds above their critical micelle concentration in aqueous solution have a narrow size distribution and are dynamic, because there is a fast exchange of amphiphiles in solution and those incorporated in micelles. However, micelles are defined as self-assembled structures, since the structure is in thermodynamical equilibrium. 

Microheterogenization on organized amphiphiles in the colloidal or nanoscale dimension 118... 

Synthesis of solid state materials using surfactant molecules as template has been extensively used in this decade. Among the advantages of the use of amphiphilic molecules, the self-assembling property of the surfactants can provide an effective method for synthesising ceramic and composite materials with interesting characteristics, such as nanoscale control of morphology, and nano or mesopore structure with narrow and controllable size distribution [1-5]. 

The kinds of structures adopted by these microorganisms as well as other mineral morphologies, are the subject of increasing study as chemists look at soft templated routes to nanoscale objects. Early work in the 1990s by a team at Mobile used supramolecular micelles, lamellae and bicontinuous phases4 formed by amphiphiles, to assemble inorganic materials, particularly silica and alumina. A range of new... 

Peptides can be used to direct the nanoscale assembly of amphiphilic synthetic polymers. A common feature is that the self-assembly of the peptides proceeds as it would do in the absence of the polymer conjugates, with the peptide suprastructure forming a core, surrounded by the polymer random coil. The polymer shell acts to limit aggregation of the peptides beyond a certain size limit. A particularly striking example of this is the self-assembly of cyclopeptide-polymer composites, which form hollow... 

The complexation of amphiphilic molecules with functionalized polymers forms layered smectic structures [94-97]. Polymeric complexes 41 consisting of poly(vinylpyridine) and an alkylphenol also form layered organized mesophases [94]. The incorporation of this structure into block copolymers with polystyrene results in the self-organization in two length scales, that is, block copolymer length and nanoscale length [95, 96]. 

---