Gas-Constructed Vesicles with Gas-Moldable Membrane Architectures.

Abstract

Integrating gas as a main building block into nanomaterial construction is a challenging mission that remains elusive. Herein, we report a gas-constructed vesicular system formed by CO2 gas and frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs). Two molecular triads bearing three bulky borane and phosphine groups are designed as trivalent disc-like FLP monomers. CO2 , as a gas cross-linker, can drive the two-dimensional polymerization of these two FLP monomers, leading to the generation of planar FLP networks that further transform into a thermodynamically favored membranous vesicle structure. Gas-guided vesicle formation is also applicable to other inert but FLP-activatable gases. Different gas linkages can form vesicles with distinct architectures, sizes, and morphologies. We envisage that this study would suggest a new concept that exploits gases to fabricate tunable nanomaterials.