Exotic Self-Organized Fullerene Materials Based on Uncommon Hydrophobic–Amphiphilic Approach

Abstract

This review documents the recent developments of supramolecular materials composed of alkylated fullerenes (C60) which have a unique hydrophobic amphiphilicity. Unlike the conventional amphiphiles composed of hydrophilic and hydrophobic units, the alkyl-conjugated C60 derivatives presented here contain two hydrophobic moieties, C60 and alkyl tails. Slightly different hydrophobicity and chemical nature make them arranged into microphase-segregated mesostructures with lamella units in nanometer scale, which mainly relies on the relatively weak interactions, π–π in neighboring C60 molecules, and van der Waals between alkyl chains. These molecular assemblies and supramolecular arrays feature distinct dimensionality and morphologies, namely exotic assemblies, as a consequence of the presence of different assembly environment, and different number and length of the alkyl chains, as well as the position of the substitutions. The systematic exploration of the molecular design and preparative methodologies for new versatile supramolecular materials will be reviewed in details.