AbstractsChemistry

The concept of shape amphiphiles was proposed about 10 years ago, describing particles that formed by building blocks with distinct shapes and interactions through chemical bonds. Among various classes of nano building blocks, Polyoxometalates (POMs) and Polyhedra Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes (POSS) are two classes that are ubiquitous in hybrid material research fields with potential applications ranging from biomaterials, catalyst engineering to photovoltaic applications. The shape amphiphiles formed by POMs and POSS through covalent bonds, thus, would be a class of promising hybrid material that possesses outstanding properties from both components.Herein, a prototype of “giant shape amphiphile” with one hydrophobic isobutyl POSS (BPOSS) and one hydrophilic POM (Lindqvist-type hexamolybdate) is studied. We report the molecular design, synthesis strategy, characterization, and thermal analysis studies. Sonogashira coupling is utilized to synthesize the BPOSS-POM hybrids. The hybrids were fully characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectroscopy. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) is used to study the phase transition behavior of this material. And the structure information of single crystal formed by BPOSS-POM will be the focus of the future work.