Surfactants
are functional molecules comprising a water-compatible
head group and a hydrophobic tail. One of their features is the formation
of self-assembled structures in contact with water, for instance,
micelles, vesicles, or lyotropic liquid crystals. One way to increase
the functionality of surfactants is to implement moieties containing
transition-metal species. Ferrocene-based surfactants represent an
excellent example because of the distinguished redox features. In
most existing ferrocene-based amphiphiles, an alkyl chain is classically
used as the hydrophobic tail. We report the synthesis and properties
of 1-triisopropylsilylethynyl-1′-trimethylammoniummethylferrocene
(FcNMe3TIPS). In FcNMe3TIPS, ferrocene is part
of the head group (Gemini design) but is also attached to a (protected)
π-conjugated ethynyl group. Although this architecture differs
from that of classical amphiphiles and those of other ferrocene-based
amphiphiles, the compound shows marked surfactant properties comparable
to those of lipids, exhibiting a very low value of critical aggregation
concentration in water (cac = 0.03 mM). It forms classical micelles
only in a very narrow concentration range, which then convert into
monolayer vesicles. Unlike classical surfactants, aggregates already
form at a very low concentration, far beneath that required for the
formation of a monolayer at the air–water interface. At even
higher concentration, FcNMe3TIPS forms lyotropic liquid
crystals, not only in contact with water, but also in a variety of
organic solvents. As an additional intriguing feature, FcNMe3TIPS is amenable to a range of further modification reactions. The
TIPS group is easily cleaved, and the resulting ethynyl function can
be used to construct heterobimetallic platinum-ferrocene conjugates
with trans-Pt(PEt3)2X (X =
Cl, I) complex entities, leading to a heterobimetallic surfactant.
We also found that the benzylic α-position of FcNMe3TIPS is rather reactive and that the attached ammonium group can
be exchanged by other substituents (e.g., −CN), which offers
additional opportunities for further functionalization. Although FcNMe3TIPS is reversibly oxidized in voltammetric and UV–vis
spectroelectrochemical experiments, the high reactivity at the α-position
is also responsible for the instability of the corresponding ferrocenium
ion, leading to a polymerization reaction.