Self-assembly And Performances Of Some Bolaform Functional Amphiphilic Molecules

Currently, the self-assembly of small functional molecules into supramolecularstructures, is a powerful method for preparing novel nanomaterials. Bolaform functionalamphiphilic molecules have received more and more attention because of its specialmolecular structures and special assembly behaviors. In this paper, new Bolaformcholesteryl imide derivatives and Bolaform Schiff base compound were designed andsynthesized. Then their self-assembly process were studied. The as-obtained two kinds ofdifferent self-assembled materials were gel materials and nanocomposites, and the keyresearch is the adsorption performance toward heavy metal ions by obtainednanocomposites.As a class of self-assembled materials，the gel materials were synthesized by thegelation in different solvents of Bolaform cholesteryl imide derivatives with differentspacers. In experiments, their gelation behaviors, and analyzed the reasons of differentgelation behaviors were studied. The experimental results indicated that suitablecombination of flexible/rigid segments in molecular spacers in the present cholesterylgelators is favorable for the gelation of organic solvents. Besides, Scanning electronmicroscopy and atomic force microscopy observations revealed that the gelatormolecules self-assemble into different aggregates, from wrinkle and belt to fiber. What ismore, these different aggregates can be regulated by changing the spacers and organicsolvents. Spectral studies indicated that there existed different H-bond formationsbetween imide groups and assembly modes, depending on the substituent spacers inmolecular skeletons. These results afford useful information for the design anddevelopment of new versatile low molecular mass organogelators and soft matter.Another task of this paper is to research the performance of the as-obtainednanocomposites, the same as a class of self-assembled materials. This novelnanocomposites was fabricated for selective Cu(II) removal by immobilizing solubleSchiff base nanoclusters within a macroporous cation exchange resin. The experimentalresults indicated that comparing with the host cation exchanger, the novelnanocomposites displays more preferable adsorption toward Cu(II) in the presence of competing ions at greater levels in solution. Fixed-bed column adsorption of asynthetic solution containing Cu(II) and other co-ions showed that the obtainednanocomposites have a high efficient adsorption performance toward Cu(II), with thetreatment volume as high as400BV per run, while that for macroporous cationexchangeresin was only100BV under otherwise identical conditions. Moreover, theexhausted nanocomposites can be readily regenerated by HCl-NaCl binary solution forrepeated use with negligible capacity loss. Based on the above experimental results, theprepared nanocomposites are expected to serve as promising functionalized sorbentnanomaterials for deep removal of Cu(II) from contaminated waters. At the same time,present studies provide new clue and explore for fabricating novel high efficientnanocomposite adsorbent material.