Engineering the cavity of self-assembled dynamic nanotubes.

By analogy with hydrogen-bonded molecular capsules, self-assembled nanotubes are of interest because they can temporarily isolate guest molecules from the solution. We show here that the stability of a particular bis-urea based dynamic self-assembled nanotube is related to the possibility for solvent molecules to fit inside the tubular cavity. The diameter of the cavity can be finely tuned by introducing a modified monomer in controlled amount.