Atom-economic macrocyclic amphiphile based on guanidinium-functionalized selenacrown ether acting as redox-responsive nanozyme

Control of self-assembly is significant to the preparation of supramolecular materials, but the control of hydration, responsiveness, dimension, catalysis of macrocyclic amphiphiles in an atom-economic manner is still a great challenge. The herein presented 527 Da low-molecular-weight macrocyclic amphiphile was fabricated by utilizing the selenium-containing crown ether as a hydrophobic motif together with guanidinium group as the hydrophilic moiety. The resulting benzo[21]crown-7 based macrocyclic amphiphile readily forms a redox-responsive solid nanoparticles in water, which can further interconnect into wrinkled pattern on-surface, as well as exhibits as a nanozyme for catalyzing disulfid bond formation. The present work highlights the great potential of guanidinium- and selenium-containing crown ethers for the control of functional assemblies.