title: Bio-inspired hierarchical self-assembly of nanotubes into multi-dimensional and multi-scale structures.
abstract: As inspired from nature's strategy to prepare collagen, herein we report a hierarchical solution self-assembly method to prepare multi-dimensional and multi-scale supra-structures from the building blocks of pristine titanate nanotubes (TNTs) around 10 nm. With the help of amylose, the nanotubes was continuously self-assembled into helically wrapped TNTs, highly aligned fibres, large bundles, 2D crystal facets and 3D core-shell hybrid crystals. The amyloses work as the glue molecules to drive and direct the hierarchical self-assembly process extending from microscopic to macroscopic scale. The whole self-assembly process as well as the self-assembly structures were carefully characterized by the combination methods of (1)H NMR, CD, Hr-SEM, AFM, Hr-TEM, SAED pattern and EDX measurements. A hierarchical self-assembly mechanism was also proposed.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry & Chemical Technology, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Qinghua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Yongfeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Deyue
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yan
mesh_terms: D000688:Amylose / Q000737:chemistry; D037741:Fullerenes / Q000737:chemistry; D043942:Nanotubes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D037741:Fullerenes; D012997:Solvents; C530172:pristine (C60); D000688:Amylose