Investigation of Self-Assembled Supramolecular Species in Solution by IL-ESMS, a New Mass Spectrometric Technique

摘要

The spontaneous assembly of complementary components into designed architectures has developed recently into a central theme of supramolecular chemistry. In particular, hydrogen bonding has been used for the generation of supramoiecular assemblies insolution, in liquid crystals, and in the solid state. Whereas solid-state structures may be determined by X-ray crystallography, procedures are greatly needed for investigation of organized species formed in solution, in particular to determine whether their structures are the same as in the solid. Vapor-phase osmometry, membrane osmometry, and gel permeation chroinatography have been used and generally yield molecular weights with degrees of error that can be as large as a single assembly unit, in addition they only give an average of all species in solution.