Stabilizing Liquids Using Interfacial Supramolecular Polymerization

Pei-Yang Gu; Yu Chai; Honghao Hou; Ganhua Xie; Yufeng Jiang; Qing-Feng Xu; Feng Liu; Paul D Ashby; Jian-Mei Lu; Thomas P Russell

doi:10.1002/anie.201906339

Stabilizing Liquids Using Interfacial Supramolecular Polymerization

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2019 Aug 26;58(35):12112-12116. doi: 10.1002/anie.201906339. Epub 2019 Jul 28.

Authors

Pei-Yang Gu^{1

2}, Yu Chai^{2

3}, Honghao Hou², Ganhua Xie², Yufeng Jiang², Qing-Feng Xu¹, Feng Liu⁴, Paul D Ashby³, Jian-Mei Lu¹, Thomas P Russell^{2

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Collaborative Innovation, Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China.
² Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
³ Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200240, P. R. China.
⁵ Polymer Science and Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA.
⁶ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China.

PMID: 31353804
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201906339

Abstract

The strong electrostatic interactions at the oil-water interface between a small molecule, 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-sulfonatophenyl)porphyrin, H₆ TPPS, dissolved in water, and an amine terminated hydrophobic polymer dissolved in oil are shown to produce a supramolecular polymer surfactant (SPS) of H₆ TPPS at the interface with a binding energy that is sufficiently strong to allow an intermolecular aggregation of the supramolecular polymers. SPSs at the oil-water interface are confirmed by in situ real-space atomic force microcopy imaging. The assemblies of these aggregates can jam at the interface, opening a novel route to kinetically trap the liquids in non-equilibrium shapes. The elastic film, comprised of SPSs, wrinkles upon compression, providing a strategy to stabilize liquids in non-equilibrium shapes.

Keywords: in situ AFM; interface assembly; porphyrins; structure liquid; supramolecular polymers.