LAUSR

The self-assembly of amphiphilic building blocks represents an elegant strategy to produce (nano)structures with unique functionalities and is often investigated for a wide range of applications in biology and materials science. Herein, we report micro- to nanoscale vesicular assembly made of naturally abundant dendritic polyphenols, tannic acid (TA). Rich content in several plant parts, nontoxicity, and the inherent ability of diverse molecular interactions including H-bonding, π–π interactions, and metal coordination make such polyphenols a promising class of natural building blocks for supramolecular assembly and precursors for natural surfactants. The facile modification of hydrophilic TA by introducing n-alkyl chains produced TA-based multiarm surfactants, which facilitates molecular assembly in water. Systematic manipulations of processing parameters including amphiphile concentration, cosolvent ratio, and mixing rate enabled us to achieve well-defined and size-tunable spherical vesicles in the rang...