Synthesis and characterization of nanoarchitectures from fatty acid derivatives of 2,6-diaminopyridine and 2-aminopyridine

The self-assembling property of lipids makes it an important building block in the field of supramolecular nanoarchitectures with a variety of applications in chemistry, biochemistry, materials science and medicine. We report here, the synthesis and formation of variety of nanostructures such as nanosheets, nanofibers and nanotubes of fatty acid derivatives of 2,6-diaminopyridine and 2-aminopyridine. These molecules possess a saturated or unsaturated long alkyl-chain group as the self-assembling unit. The molecular recognition property of diaminopyridine linker as a result of H-bonding was confirmed by 1H-NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy and it plays an important role in monitoring the chemical selectivity of supramolecular aggregates toward guest binding. The chemical structures were characterized by Fourier transform– infrared, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, mass spectra, whereas the morphologies were imaged using scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.