Self Assembly

Most technical functional units are built bit by bit according to a well-designed construction plan. The components are sequentially put in place by humans or machines. Life, however, is based on a different principle. It starts bottom-up with molecular self-assembly. The crystallization of sugar or more

A new membrane developed at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG) separates small dye particles or drug substances not only by size but also by their electrical charge. This additional function enables organic molecules with lateral dimensions of one to two nanometres to be such high-efficiently se more

Knots are all around us: in computer cables, headphones and wires. But, although they can be a nuisance, they're also very useful when it comes to tying up your laces or when you go sailing. In maths, there are no less than six billion different potential knots, but what about knots in chemistry? Si more

One-dimensional (1D) helical nanofibers were yielded through the self-assembly of an achiral all-conjugated diblock copolymer, poly(3-hexylthiophene)-b-poly[3-(6-hydroxyl)hexylthiophene] (P3HT-b-P3HHT) in the aged pyridine solution. Such helical nanofibers were formed driven by the π-π interaction b more

In order to investigate the effects of Sm2O3 promoter on catalytic performance, the ordered mesoporous NiO–Sm2O3–Al2O3 catalysts were synthesized by a facile one-pot evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) method and used in CO methanation reaction to produce synthetic natural gas. Besides, the ord more

One-pot self-assembly of three components (metal acetates as the metal precursor, tridentate polypyridyl ligand N,N′-bis(2-pyridylmethyl)-tert-butylamine (bpta) as a capping ligand and bent dicarboxylic acids, 4,4'-(dimethylsilanediyl)bis-benzoic acid (H2L1) or 4,4'-oxybis-benzoic acid (H2L2), as br more