The molecular aggregation state of a porphyrin-perylenediimide dyad can be changed by treating with trifluoroacetic acid. Transmittance electron microscopy (TEM) images revealed that lamella micro- structures were formed when the dyad precipitated from neutral solvent, but spherical nano-particles were obtained when precipitating from acidic solution. X-ray diffraction patterns showed that the la- mella microstructures and the nanoparticles were polycrystalline and amorphous solids, respectively. By using rational perylenediimide and porphyrin as reference compounds, careful analyses on the UV-visible spectra of the dyad and the references under different conditions were conducted and the results demonstrated that both the porphyrin and perylendiimide subunits of the dyad took J-aggregation in neutral solvent, but after being treated with trifluoroacetic acid and chloroform solu- tion, the perylenediimide subunit changed to an H-aggregation while the porphyrin subunits changed to a random packing mode.
We report a fluorescence "turn-on" method to detect the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of surfactants. This method works well for both cationic and anionic surfactants. It employs an unprecedented mechanism (aggregation-induced emission, or AIE) to determine the CMC values, and the results are consistent with the data obtained by the classical techniques. In addition, this method renders the convenient detection of the CMC values. Any large and professional instruments are unnecessary, instead, a portable UV lamp and an ultrasonic generator are enough to carry out the detection in an ordinary laboratory. Considering that micelles are interesting entities and have found applications in many important fields such as emulsion polymerization, template of nanosized materials synthesis, controllable drug delivery and macromolecular self-assembling. Our experimental results may offer a facile, sensitive and promising method to detect the formation of micelles constructed by the new amphiphilic molecules and macromolecules.
