Highly ordered, ultra long nanofibrils via the hierarchical self-assembly of ionic aromatic oligoamidesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Experimental methods, synthesis, nuclear magnetic resonance spectra, elemental analysis, optical microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectra, SAXS peak-position data and the qualitative sketch of potential energy curves of this system. See DOI: 10.1039/c3sm50390a

• Main Authors: Li, Junjun, Huang, Ningdong, Wang, Daoliang, Xu, Lu, Huang, Youju, Chen, Mingming, Tao, Jiaojiao, Pan, Guoqiang, Wu, Ziyu, Li, Liangbin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1744-683X; 1744-6848
• DOI: 10.1039/c3sm50390a

Highly ordered templates are of great importance in fabricating well-arranged nanomaterials. Inspired by the hierarchical assembly of bio-macromolecules, we designed a water soluble three-arm ionic aromatic oligoamide which can spontaneously self-assemble into bundles of nanofibrils. Unlike conventional assemblies formed by synthetic oligoamides individually dispersed in solution, the nanofibrils in our present study tend to further arrange into orthorhombic arrays and form microfibers that can be up to millimeters in length. The surrounding ions play a key role in assembly behavior and possess a high metal-ion binding capacity, which provides a strategy for tuning ordered structures of functional materials and possibilities for understanding the assembly mechanism of biological counterparts. Highly ordered nanofibrils are obtained in water with synthetic ionic aromatic oligoamides, where the surrounding ions play a key role in balancing the inter-nanofibril distance.