Self-organised nano-arrays of p-phosphonic acid functionalised higher order calixarenes

Thomas E. Clark, Mohamed Makha, Alexandre N. Sobolev, Dian Su, Henry Rohrs, Michael L. Gross, Jerry L. Atwood, Colin L. Raston

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

Water-soluble p-phosphonic acid calix[n]arenes (n = 5, 6 or 8) have been synthesized in five steps in overall 68, 66, 67% yield, respectively, by the recently developed procedure for p-phosphonic acid calix[4]arene. The hydrogen bonding prowess of the phosphonic acids dominates their self assembly into nano-arrays in both solution and the gas phase. In DMSO, nano-arrays of p-phosphonic acid calix[6]arene are stable for over 24 h, with the solvent molecules slowly disrupting the hydrogen bonded network affording solvated monomeric units. In the gas phase, nano-arrays of around 20 calixarene units were observed for the p-phosphonic acid calix[n]arenes using MALDI-TOF-MS, and ESI-MS revealed the presence of heteroleptic nano-arrays for a 1: 1 mixture of p-phosphonic acid calix[4,5]arenes.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1478-1483
Number of pages6
JournalNew Journal of Chemistry
Volume32
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008

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