Peptoid-Controlled Synthesis and Assembly of Inorganic Nanocrystals

In nature, biominerals (e.g. bones and teeth) are excellent examples of hierarchical composite materials with nanocrystal synthesis and assembly controlled over multiple length scales by high information content biomacromolecules. Inspired by nature, many biomimetic approaches have been developed for the synthesis and assembly of inorganic nanocrystals. These approaches are attractive because they generate complex, functional materials under mild aqueous synthetic conditions.^1,2<br/><br/>As one of the most advanced classes of sequence-defined peptide-mimetics, peptoids offer great opportunities for the design and synthesis of bioinspired hierarchical composite materials.^3,4,5 Due to the lack of backbone hydrogen bonding, peptoid-peptoid and peptoid-surface interactions can be tuned solely by varying side-chain chemistry.^1,5 Recently, amphiphilic peptoids have been often used as programmable building blocks to generate various crystalline nanomaterials due to the well-controlled hydrophobic interactions.^1,3,6 In this presentation, two peptoid-based approaches will be discussed for the synthesis and assembly of inorganic nanocrystals. <i>The first </i>involves the design and synthesis of surfactant-like peptoids for controlling the formation and morphogenesis of inorganic nanocrystals. <i>The second </i>approach exploits the well-controlled hydrophobic interactions of self-assembling peptoids for controlling both synthesis and assembly of inorganic nanocrystals into hierarchical materials. A combination of <i>in situ </i>imaging (e.g. <i>in situ </i>TEM) and molecular simulations were used to elucidate the principles underlying peptoid-controlled composite materials synthesis.<br/><br/>(1) Shao et al., <i>Chem. Rev. </i><b>2022</b>, <i>122</i> (24), 17397; Li et al., <i>Chem. Rev. </i><b>2021</b>, <i>121</i> (22), 14031.<br/>(2) Chen et al., <i>Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. </i><b>2010</b>, <i>49</i> (11), 1924.<br/>(3) Yang et al., <i>J. Colloid Interface Sci. </i><b>2023</b>, <i>634</i>, 450; Jian et al., <i>Nature Comm. </i><b>2022</b>, <i>13</i> (1), 3025; Wang et al., <i>Science Adv. </i><b>2021</b>, <i>7</i> (20), eabg1448.<br/>(4) Jin et al., <i>Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. </i><b>2022</b>, <i>61</i> (14), e202201980; Yan et al., <i>Nature Comm. </i><b>2018</b>, <i>9</i> (1), 2327; Torkelson et al., <i>Chem. Mater. </i><b>2024</b>, 36, 786; Yang et al., <i>J. Phys. Chem. Lett.</i> <b>2023</b>, 14, 9732.<br/>(5) Yang et al., <i>Chem. Mater. </i><b>2021</b>, <i>33</i> (9), 3047; Cai et al., <i>Acc. Chem. Res. </i><b>2021</b>, <i>54</i> (1), 81.<br/>(6) Song et al., <i>ACS Materials Letters </i><b>2021</b>, <i>3</i> (4), 420; Jin et al., <i>Nature Comm. </i><b>2018</b>, <i>9</i> (1), 270; Ma et al., <i>Nature Mater. </i><b>2017</b>, <i>16</i>, 767; Jin et al., <i>Nature Comm. </i><b>2016</b>, <i>7</i>, 12252; Zheng et al., <i>Nature Comm. </i><b>2024</b>, <i>15</i>, 3264.