Facile Fabrication of Robust Organic Counterion‐Induced Vesicles: Reversible Thermal Behavior for Optical Temperature Sensor and Synergistic Catalyst upon Removal of Amine

Abstract

A general concept of organic counterion‐directed molecular strategy for thepreparation of robust vesicles is developed. Functional amphiphilic ammonium salts (L1‐L3) bearing readily available oligo‐ethyleneglycol‐based ligand 1 and single‐tailed fatty amines self‐assemble into vesicles with controllable sizes in aqueous media. The organic counterion‐induced vesicles (OCIVs) are characterized by dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, and acid triggered release of hydrophilic drug (DOX·HCl). The introduction of organic counterion not only plays an important role in vesicle construction, but also endows the material with greatly practical values. By virtue of alkynyl groups attached on the organic ligand, the OCIVs can be easily cross‐linked via thiol‐ene reaction to generate a robust material. Importantly, the cross‐linked OCIVs exploit reversible temperature‐dependant size change, which can be repeated over 10 times without appreciable size fluctuating. Based on the unique property, a robust luminescence temperature sensor with a useful detection range of 35–70 °C is developed. Besides, removing the amines buried in the polymerized OCIVs under acidic condition, the resulting carboxylic acid‐functionalized material is found to have unusual efficiency as “nanozyme” for acetal hydrolysis, which exhibits over 20‐fold rate acceleration compared with that catalyzed by 1 or benzoic acid.