Self-assembly of bolaamphiphiles forming alternating layer arrangements with lead and copper divalent ions

Five bifunctional alpha -amino acid-epsilon -carboxy bolaamphiphiles [(2-RS, or RS)-(HOOC)-(CH2)(m)-CONH-(CH2)(n)-CH(COOH)(NH2) m=20,22, n=3,4 labeled (l), (d,l)-C(22)Orn (l), (d), (d,l)-C(22)Lys, (d,l)-C(24)Lys respectively] were synthesized. These molecules were deposited on different aqueous subphases, and studied by means of grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). On deionized water, the bolaamphiphiles (dl)-C(22)Lys yield a mixture of crystallites: both a monolayer, in which the chains are tilted from the normal, and a multilayer in which the molecules lie parallel to the water. On the other hand, when deposited on mono- or bi-metal ionic subphases, they self-assemble into crystalline multilayer films in which the molecules lie parallel to the aqueous solution surface, linked head-to-head and tail-to-tail in the form of extended chains. The latter are juxtaposed such that the metal ions form sheets separated by the organic molecules, aligned perpendicular to the plane of the aqueous solution. Deposition of either the enantiomerically pure or racemic bifunctional bolaamphiphiles on an aqueous solution of mixed Cu(Acetate)(2) and Pb(Acetate)(2), yields self-assembled crystalline films composed of the two different metal cations, arranged in alternating sheets, separated by the organic spacer. Both GIXD and X-ray-photoelectric-spectroscopy (XPS) studies (after deposition on solid support) demonstrate that the structures of these films differ form the ones formed on either pure Pb(Ac)(2) or on Cu(AC)(2) solutions, thus excluding the simultaneous formation of the two monometallic crystalline phases.