Morphological control of helical solid bilayers in high-axial-ratio nanostructures through binary self-assembly.

Mixed molecular species of cardanyl glucoside derived from renewable resources provide nanotubes upon self-assembly in water, while the saturated homologue generated a twisted fibrous morphology. The cardanyl glucoside mixture was fractionated into four individual components in order to study their contribution to the nanotube formation. The rational control of self-assembled helical morphologies was achieved by binary self-assembling of the saturated and monoene derivatives. This method can generate a diversity of self-assembled high-axial-ratio nanostructures (HARNs), ranging from twisted ribbons and helical ribbons to nanotubes.