Self-assembly Of Organic-inorganic Hybrid Amphiphilic Surfactants With Large Polyoxometalates As Polar Head Groups

摘要

Amphiphilic surfactants are important in many fields due to their ability to self-assemble in selective solvents. Such surfactant molecules usually have a polar headgroup and one (or more) hydrophobic tail. Recently, various nanoscaled hydrophobic units such as fullerenes and polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes have been used to form hybrid amphiphiles in an attempt to engineer surfactant molecules with new functionalities and physical properties. To build on this we have designed new types of inorganic-organic hybrids by tethering organic ligands to the surface of a large molecular metal-oxide cluster, e.g., polyoxometalate (POM) clusters, via covalent modification of the metal oxide cage. These hybrids are more stable than those complexes formed by electrostatic interactions between cationic surfactants and POM anions and contain hydrophilic POM clusters and long hydrophobic chains.