Title
Helix-Sense-Selective Co-precipitation for Preparing Optically Active Helical Polymer Nanoparticles/Graphene Oxide Hybrid Nanocomposites
Author
Huajun Huang, Weifei Li, Yan Shi, Jianping Deng
Year
2017
Journal
Nanoscale
Abstract
Constructing optically active helical polymer based nanomaterials without using expensive and limited chirally helical polymers has been becoming an extremely attractive research topic in both chemical and material science. In this study, we prepared a series of optically active helical polymer nanoparticles/graphene oxide (OAHPNs/GO) hybrid nanocomposites through an unprecedented strategy—the co-precipitation of optically inactive helical polymers and chirally modified GO. This approach is named as helix-sense-selective co-precipitation (HSSCP), in which the chirally modified GO acted as chiral source for inducing and further stabilizing the predominantly one-handed helicity in the optically inactive helical polymers. SEM and TEM images show the quite similar morphologies of all the obtained OAHPNs/GO nanocomposites; specifically, the chirally modified GO sheets were uniformly decorated with spherical polymer nanoparticles. Circular dichroism (CD) and UV-vis absorption spectra confirmed the preferentially induced helicity in the helical polymers and the optical activity of the nanocomposites. The established HSSCP strategy is thus proven widely applicable and is expected to produce numerous functional OAHPNs/GO nanocomposites and even the analogues.
Instrument
J-810
Keywords
Circular dichroism, Polymers, Solid-state, Nanostructures, Materials