Crown ethers in graphene

Junjie Guo, Jaekwang Lee, Cristian I. Contescu, Nidia C. Gallego, Sokrates T. Pantelides, Stephen J. Pennycook, Bruce A. Moyer, Matthew F. Chisholm

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

158 Scopus citations

Abstract

Crown ethers are at their most basic level rings constructed of oxygen atoms linked by two- or three-carbon chains. They have attracted attention for their ability to selectively incorporate various atoms or molecules within the cavity formed by the ring. However, crown ethers are typically highly flexible, frustrating efforts to rigidify them for many uses that demand higher binding affinity and selectivity. Here we present atomic-resolution images of the same basic structures of the original crown ethers embedded in graphene. This arrangement constrains the crown ethers to be rigid and planar. First-principles calculations show that the close similarity of the structures should also extend to their selectivity towards specific metal cations. Crown ethers in graphene offer a simple environment that can be systematically tested and modelled. Thus, we expect that our finding will introduce a new wave of investigations and applications of chemically functionalized graphene.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5389
JournalNature Communications
Volume5
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 13 2014

Funding

We are grateful to Dr Suk-kyun Ahn (ORNL) for his very helpful comments. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division (J.G., J.L., C.I.C., N.C.G., S.T.P., S.J.P. and M.F.C.) and Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences (B.A.M.), by DOE grant DE-FG02-09ER46554 (S.T.P.), and through a user project supported by ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. DOE (contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231).

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