Graphene, a two-dimensional sp2-hybridized lattice of carbon atoms has attracted great attention because of their unique electronic, chemical and magnetic properties.1 Inspired from the unique electronic nature of carbon materials, organic chemists to synthesize polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as small fragments of graphene. hexabenzocoronene (HBC) is one of the best example of PAH, which consists of thirteen fused benzene rings and can be considered as one of the smallest graphene fragments. Our group have successfully designed the amphiphilic HBC, self-assembled to form one dimensional single bilayer wall nanotubes in THF by heating-cooling method.2 However, despite the many achievements in the self-assembly of functionalized amphiphiles, creating well defined 1D supramolecular nanotubular objects with tunable wall layer from same building block is still rare. For this purpose, we designed and synthesized perfluoroalkyl-appended HBC amphiphile. This molecule was synthesized from hexaphenylbenzene upon treated with FeCl3/MeNO2 in CH2Cl2 at 25 0C. This compound was characterized by 1H, 13C NMR, MALDI-TOF-MS and FT-IR. UV-vis spectrum revealed the red-shifted wavelength absorption maximum at 375 nm along with the shoulder band appeared at 435 nm, indicates J-aggregation. SEM and TEM micrographs of an air-dried CH2Cl2suspension showed formation of cylindraceous objects with several hundred nanometers in length . The observed morphologies are quite different from those of previously reported nanotubular objects from hydrocarbon HBC amphiphiles.This new graphitic nanotube pave the way for designing novel nanomaterials.Schematic representation of HBC nanotubular assembliesReferences (1) Novoselov, K. S.; Geim, A. K.; Morozov, S. V.; Jiang, D.; Zhang, Y.; Doubonos, S. V.; Grigorieva, I. V; Firsov, A. A. Science 2004  , 306, 666-669.(2) Aida, T.; Meijer, E. W.; Stupp, S, I. Science 2012  , 335, 813-817.

Wall layer tunable graphitic nanotubes: Controlling the self-assembly of HBC amphiphiles

248th National Meeting (2014)

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