Self-Assembled Soft Nanomaterials from Renewable Resources

A set of amphiphilic glycolipids were synthesized from cardanol (a by-product of cashew industry) and diaminopyridine (DAP). These amphiphiles encompass selfassembling units such as long hydrophobic saturated or unsaturated chain, open or closed sugar as headgroup and aromatic (phenyl or DAP) as linker. Amphiphiles from both series (cardanyl and DAP) exhibited excellent self-assembling properties to produce various lipid based materials ranging from structurally unordered fibers to highly uniform nanotubes. Their self-assembling properties were investigated by various techniques including EF-TEM, SEM, XRD and DSC. The nanotubes are comprised of bilayer structure with interdigitated alkyl chains associated through hydrophobic