Complex Structures Resulting from Carboxylic Acid Self-Assembly: Comparison of 2‑Naphthoic Acid to Quinaldic Acid and 3‑Quinoline Carboxylic Acid Jacob P
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Article Cite This: J. Phys. Chem. C 2019, 123, 13610−13614 pubs.acs.org/JPCC Complex Structures Resulting from Carboxylic Acid Self-Assembly: Comparison of 2‑Naphthoic Acid to Quinaldic Acid and 3‑Quinoline Carboxylic Acid Jacob P. Petersen,† Ryan D. Brown,‡ Angela M. Silski,† Steven A. Corcelli,† and S. Alex Kandel*,† †Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, United States ‡Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York 13699, United States ABSTRACT: Scanning tunneling microscopy was used to study the self-assembly of three molecules on the Au(111) surface: 2-naphthoic acid, quinaldic acid, and 3-quinoline carboxylic acid. All three compounds consist of two fused six-membered rings functionalized at the same position with a carboxylic acid group. Despite their chemical similarity, widely different structures were observed to result from self- assembly after pulse deposition. 2-Naphthoic acid forms cyclically hydrogen-bonded pentamers, a metastable structure that transitions to rows of dimers upon gentle annealing. Quinaldic acid and 3-quinoline carboxylic acid form dimers, tetramers, and hexamers, but no pentamers. Differences in self-assembly between these three compounds are attributed to the ability of quinaldic acid and 3-quinoline carboxylic acid to form zwitterionic species. ■ INTRODUCTION Recent work from our laboratory26,27 has focused on the fi expansion of the COOH group beyond a simple synthon, Molecular self-assembly is de ned as the spontaneous process fi of bringing molecules together via noncovalent interactions to showing that structures signi cantly more complex than dimers form highly organized structures without external direction. can arise when a molecule has additional hydrogen-bond Micelle formation is a prototypical self-assembly process donor or acceptor groups adjacent to COOH. This is the case 1 even when the hydrogen-bonding activity of these groups is occurring in the natural world, as is the formation of the − DNA double helix through complementary base pairing.2,3 relatively weaker than average. For example, aromatic C H groups are far weaker H-atom donors than COOH, but the Structures engineered by controlled self-assembly can be − simple, such as atoms forming into local islands on metal presence of an aromatic C H next to COOH acts to stabilize 4,5 6,7 the formation of cyclic hydrogen-bonded pentamers in surfaces or thiolate monolayers on gold surfaces, with 28 8,9 ferrocenecarboxylic acid. We have observed similar effects increasing complexity including multilayer structures and 29 host−guest composites.10,11 Additionally, self-assembly can be in the formation of pentamers of indole carboxylic acids and Downloaded via UNIV OF NOTRE DAME on August 12, 2019 at 17:02:17 (UTC). 30 altered by the inclusion of various factors, including molecular of hexamers of ferrocenedicarboxylic acid. functionalization,12,13 charge separation,14 and surface mod- In the current study, we take advantage of the sample 15 See https://pubs.acs.org/sharingguidelines for options on how to legitimately share published articles. ification. Self-assembly, along with the related fields of preparation technique of pulse deposition in order to create supramolecular chemistry and crystal engineering, has many surfaces on which molecules undergo nonequilibrium self- practical applications including coatings,16,17 nanoscale elec- organization. The resultant structures are not a single tronics,18,19 and pharmaceuticals.20,21 thermodynamically favored structure but multiple kinetically In planning and designing self-assembled systems, carboxylic trapped, metastable structures. In pulse deposition, small acid (COOH) groups are a common supramolecular droplets of a low-concentration solution are introduced into synthon:22 a functional group with a powerful and reliable vacuum. Rapid evaporation of the solvent results in a droplet effect on self-assembly with performance that can be counted that is increasingly smaller, cooler, and more concentrated. on largely independent of the rest of the molecule to which it is The dynamics at the solid-solution interface govern the attached. COOH groups generally form dimers with strong subsequent self-assembly process, creating complex patterned reciprocal hydrogen bonding, where the OH group is a surfaces that afford new insights into how intermolecular hydrogen-bond donor and the CO group an acceptor. interactions guide the formation of structures in a molecule-by- COOH dimers are highly prevalent in the solid-state crystal molecule fashion. structures of organic molecules.23 Self-assembly based on COOH dimerization has been used to create linear structures Received: February 25, 2019 on the nanoscale as well as a wide variety of branched Revised: April 25, 2019 networks.24,25 Published: May 9, 2019 © 2019 American Chemical Society 13610 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b01817 J. Phys. Chem. C 2019, 123, 13610−13614 The Journal of Physical Chemistry C Article Figure 1. Chemical structures of (a) 2-naphthoic acid, (b) quinaldic acid, and (c) 3-quinoline carboxylic acid. ■ METHODS as ferrocenecarboxylic acid and indole carboxylic acids, where Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM). Au(111)/mica cyclic hydrogen bonding is stabilized by the presence of weaker hydrogen bonds, formed from C−H groups adjacent to samples were purchased from Keysight Technologies and − prepared in high vacuum (10−5 to 10−8 Torr) through three COOH. In the past, this C H stabilization of a hydrogen- bonded ring structure has only been observed from beta H- cycles of argon sputtering (0.55 kV, 15 min) and annealing at fi − ∼400 °C for 15 min. After the samples were cooled, they were atom donors on ve-membered rings; in contrast, here C H transferred to a high-vacuum load lock for pulse deposition. stabilization is observed on a six-membered ring. Solutions (17 mM) of 2-naphthoic acid and quinaldic acid, Although features corresponding to pentamers are prevalent on the surface, they lack uniformity. Previous studies have seen Figure 1a,b, respectively, were prepared in methanol and − toluene. Solutions (17 mM) of 3-quinoline carboxylic acid, pentamers in C5-symmetric orientations exclusively, as the C H groups in the beta position relative to COOH were Figure 1c, were prepared in methanol. All solutions were 26,34 prepared in air. All solutes were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich, chemically inequivalent. 2-Naphthoic acid deviates from fi this trend because of the availability of two chemically and all solvents were purchased from Fisher Scienti c. − Solutions were injected into a pulsed solenoid valve (Parker equivalent C H groups in the beta position relative to Instruments, Series 9, IOTA ONE Driver, 0.5 mm diameter COOH. Because of this chemical equivalence, each molecule nozzle) and deposited onto clean Au(111)/mica. The samples in the superstructure has two available conformations, resulting were then transferred into an Omicron scanning tunneling in a total of 32 permutations of pentamers, with four being microscope (LT-UHV, base pressure 5 × 10−10 Torr), where distinguishable and shown in Figure 2. they were cooled to 77 K prior to imaging. Clustering behavior was also studied for two related Density Functional Theory (DFT). All multimolecular molecules, quinaldic acid and 3-quinoline carboxylic acid. energy optimizations were performed with the Q-Chem 5.0 Like 2-naphthoic acid, each of these molecules consists of software package. Structures of molecular clusters were fused six-membered rings, with the same position of the − carboxylic acid group. They differ by the substitution of one of optimized with the Perdew, Burke, and Ernzerhof exchange ’ − correlation functional,31 chosen for its broad applicability to 2-naphthoic acid sC H groups for a nitrogen atom. For organic systems. The 6-311++G(d,p) basis set was used in quinaldic acid, this nitrogen is adjacent to the carboxylic acid; conjunction with Grimme’s D3 dispersion correction.32 Ring for 3-quinoline carboxylic acid, it is separated by another carbon. Both molecules could in principle arrange identically structures were generated such that pseudo-Cn (where n is the ’ fi number of molecules) symmetry was approximated. All to 2-naphthoic acid s pentamer con guration. For 3-quinoline carboxylic acid in particular, the nitrogen is remote from the structures were started in a planar geometry. All structures − were subjected to the Boys and Bernardi counterpoise COOH and C H groups involved in hydrogen bonding. correction to account for basis set superposition error.33 Figure 3 shows that neither molecule formed pentamers after pulse deposition. Instead, quinaldic acid formed C4- ■ RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Initial deposition of 2-naphthoic acid in methanol on Au(111) produced two primary structures, with pentamers being the majority species, as shown in Figure 2. The calculated structure of the pentamer is similar to previously observed systems such Figure 3. STM images of (a) quinaldic acid, 400 × 400 Å and (b) 3- quinoline carboxylic acid, 350 × 350 Å on Au(111). Representative dimers, tetramers, and hexamers are highlighted in blue, red, and orange, respectively. symmetric tetramers and two forms of dimers, while 3- quinoline carboxylic acid produced a disordered surface with Figure 2. Left: STM image of 2-naphthoic acid adsorbed on Au(111), only a few hexamers and dimers. We attribute this disparity in 350 × 350 Å. Representative pentamers, ordered dimer structures, observed self-assembled