Peripheral designed indigo bola-amphiphiles for supramolecular assembled nanoarchitectonics in aqueous media

Abstract

Indigo, an ancient natural dye, featured excellent biodegradability to advance in sustainable polymer. Indigo amphiphiles can pave a way for sustainable supramolecular polymers in aqueous media for potential biomedical functional materials. However, contemporary indigo amphiphiles supramolecular commonly assemble into low aspect ratio nanostructures, which hampers the macroscopic soft scaffolds fabrications and smart functional material applications. In this study, we report a novel peripheral designed indigo bola-amphiphiles (IBAs), which assemble into high aspect ratio supramolecular nanofibers in aqueous media. By employing a shear-flow assembly technique with bio-abundant calcium ions, IBAs assemble across multiple length scales into supramolecular macroscopic scaffolds. The structural characterizations of IBAs macroscopic soft scaffolds show different supramolecular structural packing information by scanning electron microscope and X-ray scattering/diffraction techniques. Our supramolecular nanoarchitectonic approach indicates the feasibility of using IBAs molecular design to construct supramolecular macroscopic materials with higher structural order for the future smart biofunctional materials and sustainable supramolecular polymer under more environmentally friendly conditions.