Coexisting Hydrophobic Compartments through Self-Sorting in Rod-like Micelles of Bisurea Bolaamphiphiles

Multiple, coexisting hydrophobic compartments have been created in water using molecular self-sorting among mixtures of bolaamphiphiles with differently spaced urea groups in their hydrophobic parts. The selective incorporation of bisurea functionalized fluorescent probes showed that different bolaamphiphiles form separate populations of rod-like micelles, which dynamically coexist in solution, each micelle binding to its correspondingly functionalized guests.