Tuning and Designing the Self-Assembly of Surfactants: The Magic of Carbon Nanotube Arrays

Abstract

Controlling the self-assembly and polymorphic transition of surfactants is a challenging but meaningful topic for chemists and materials scientists, which is significant for the preparation of advanced nanomaterials. We presented coarse-grained (CG) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on the self-assembly of surfactants confined within the carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays. Under the effect of confinement, an intriguing “rod-double helix-hexagon-worm” polymorphic transition was observed with varying the size of the confining space. The simulations also showed that the confinement of CNT arrays does not break the characteristic of surfactant assemblies at certain concentration. Based on these results, a plausible strategy for designing complex assemblies was presented. And then, “nano-drill” and “dartboard” assemblies were created with the strategy. This work demonstrated that the confinement of CNT arrays may be an efficient method to tune and design the self-assembly of surfactants, shedding light on the development of nanotechnology and advanced materials