The design and fabrication of chiral nanostructures is a promising approach to realize enantiomeric recognition and separation. In our work, gold nanorod@chiral mesoporous silica core–shell nanoparticles (GNR@CMS NPs) have been successfully synthesized. This novel material exhibits strong and tunable circular dichroism signals in the visible and near-infrared regions due to the optical coupling between the CMS shells and the GNR cores. When chiral cysteine molecules are loaded in the porous shells, the corresponding surface enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy demonstrates a distinct chiral recognition effect, which can be used to semiquantitatively measure the composition of chiral enantiomers. A detailed sensing mechanism has been disclosed by density functional theory calculations.

Gold nanorod@chiral mesoporous silica core-shell nanoparticles with unique optical properties.

Helical conducting polymer nano-structures have attracted increasing attention because of their superior optical and electrical activities, lightweight, and flexibility as well as controllable morphologies at several levels of a hierarchy. Nevertheless, hardly any research has focused on helical conducting polymer nano-structure based electromagnetic protecting materials. Herein, we synthesized single-handed helical polypyrrole (PPy) nano-structures by a chiral inducing route and demonstrated their amazing electromagnetic protecting abilities. A gradually constructed conducting network and helical chirality may be the main reasons for the tunable and impressive electromagnetic protecting performance of the as-prepared helical PPy nano-structures. This research opens up an opportunity for the application of single-handed helical conducting polymer nano-structures as a lightweight and tunable high-performance electromagnetic protecting material, especially in the fields of special aircraft, aerospace and fast-growing next-generation flexible electronics.

Chiral induced synthesis of helical polypyrrole (PPy) nano-structures: a lightweight and high-performance material against electromagnetic pollution

Non-conventional surfactants from amino acids and glycolipids: Structure, preparation and properties

Properties and applications of amino acid based surfactants

This article provides a brief overview of functional mesoporous silica materials synthesized by the co-structure-directing route, which is distinct from conventional synthesis strategies. In these systems, organosilane serves as the co-structure-directing agent (CSDA), which provides critical interactions between the template and organic part of the organosilane to form mesostructures, thus retaining the organic groups on the pore surface after removal of the template by extraction. i) The formation of anionic-surfactant-templated mesoporous silicas (AMSs) has been achieved by the co-structure-directing route, which leads to a variety of mesostructures, porous properties and morphologies. ii) Other co-structure-directing systems for synthesizing mesoporous silicas have also been achieved, including systems using cationic surfactants and non-surfactants, and systems using DNA for constructing nanofibers and DNA–silica liquid crystalline complexes. iii) Evidence for the regular arrangement of functional groups on the pore surface resulted from the co-structure-directing effect has been discussed. Also included is a brief description of the application, future requirements, and trends in the development of mesoporous materials by the co-structure-directing route.

Organically Functionalized Mesoporous Silica by Co-structure-Directing Route

Long chain N-acylglutamic acid was prepared in a high yield by a reaction of glutamic acid with fatty acid chloride in a mixed solvent of water and a water miscible organic solvent such as acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, dioxane, tetrahydrofuran,t-butyl alcohol or cyclohexanone. In this reaction the composition of the mixed solvent influenced the yield of N-acylated glutamic acid and the best yield was obtained when the reaction was carried out in the mixed solvent comprising 30–60% v/v of the organic solvent. Long chain N-acylaspartic acid was also obtained in a high yield by the same method. As the other method to obtain N-lauroyl-D L-glutamic acid, it was examined that N-acyl-α-aminoglutarodinitrile which was obtained by a reaction of α-aminoglutarodinitrile with fatty acid chloride was hydrolyzed with an aqueous alkaline solution. The salts of long chain N-acylglutamic acid are known as the surface active agents that react mildly on the human skin.

Kouichi Takizawa

Papers

Surface active N-acylglutamate: I. Preparation of long chain N-acylglutamic acid

Studies of Detergents Derived from Amino Acids. I.