Supramolecular vesicle engineering by regulating the assembly of shape-persistent aromatic-hydrazone macrocycles

Abstract

Size is an important factor for vesicles, which is essential for their application, particularly in nanomedicine and nanomaterials. Unlike polymer vesicles, whose size can be controlled by the hydrophobic/hydrophilic content or the chain length, the size of supramolecular vesicles mainly depends on the assembly of the supramolecular building blocks. Herein, we describe a novel method to manipulate the size of supramolecular vesicles by regulating the assembly of hydrogen-bonding aromatic hydrazone macrocycles with different pyridinium guests. The assembly of an aromatic hydrazone macrocycle with different mono-/bi-pyridinium guests is confirmed by ¹H NMR, DOSY, MS, and TEM. This study offers a new strategy to manipulate the size of supramolecular vesicles, which might be of importance for the application of vesicles.