Here’s a new twist on nanotubes: chemists have found a set of organic molecules that spontaneously assemble themselves into a helical spiral with a hollow core1.
The tubes – a molecular match for fusilli pasta twists – were discovered by accident, admitted Jeremy Sanders of the University of Cambridge, UK.
His group were making modified naphthalenediimide molecules2, cooked up by microwave heating of simpler compounds. But these naphthalenediimide building blocks instantly joined together by weak hydrogen bonds, creating a polymer string that wrapped itself into a helical nanotube.
The direction that the helix twists is controlled by chiral amino acids, used in the synthesis of the building blocks.
Mon 9 Aug 2010 at 1:01 am
I really like this, thanks!
Fri 27 Aug 2010 at 12:51 am
Cooking is trully like experimenting.
Fri 10 Sep 2010 at 3:13 am
fabulous!
Wed 29 Dec 2010 at 8:48 pm
It still amazes me how people come up with new ideas to cook things real fusion cooking literally.
Mon 3 Jan 2011 at 5:44 pm
By tweaking the ingredients, the team hope that they will not only be able to find some interesting optoelectronics, but also possibly design nano-sized solenoids or capsules for drug delivery.
Tue 22 Mar 2011 at 12:38 am
Research on the chemistry must be developed
Thu 29 Sep 2011 at 12:33 pm
Very nice article. Thank you for the information.
Wed 16 Nov 2011 at 1:59 pm
Really interesting read!
Thanks
Tue 12 Jun 2012 at 2:50 pm
Good, continue discovery…
Wed 4 Jul 2012 at 8:34 am
this is realy nice….