Chiral Self-Assembly of Porphyrins Induced by Chiral Carbon Dots

Xiaowei Liu; Jiayi Lu; Jingqi Chen; Mengtian Zhang; Yingying Chen; Feifei Xing; Lingyan Feng

doi:10.3389/fchem.2020.00670

Chiral Self-Assembly of Porphyrins Induced by Chiral Carbon Dots

Front Chem. 2020 Aug 7:8:670. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00670. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Xiaowei Liu¹, Jiayi Lu², Jingqi Chen¹, Mengtian Zhang³, Yingying Chen¹, Feifei Xing⁴, Lingyan Feng¹

Affiliations

¹ Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
² College of Qianweichang, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.
³ College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.
⁴ College of Science, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Chirality plays a key role in many fields ranging from life to natural sciences. For a long time, chiral materials have been developed and used to interact with chiral environments. In recent years, fluorescent carbon dots (CDots) are a new class of carbon nanomaterials exhibit excellent optical properties, good biocompatibility, excellent water solubility, and low cost. However, chirality transfer between semiconductor CDots and organics remains a challenge. Herein, a facile one-step hydrothermal method was used to synthesize chiral CDs from cysteine (cys). The obtained chiral CDots can act as chiral templates to induce porphyrins to form chiral supramolecular assemblies. The successful transmission of chiral information provides more options for the development of various chiral composite materials and the preservation of chiral information in the future.

Keywords: chiral carbon dots; chiral templates; chirality transfer; porphyrin; self-assembly.