With support from the Organic Dynamics and the Solid State Chemistry Programs Dr. George Whitesides will continue his studies of self-assembling organic structures. The system chosen for study is the 1:1 complex between cyanuric acid and melamine. Procedures for designing, synthesizing and characterizing these self-assembling hydrogen-bond connected structures will be developed. Similar networks of hydrogen bonds will also be used in order to simplify the structures of organic crystals. The results from these studies will be utilized in order to define rules of self-assembly. %%% The formation of new materials will be investigated. These new materials consist of aggregrates of molecules held together by networks of bridging hydrogens. The long term goals of this research include: (1) to understand the factors which control the formation of these aggregates, and (2) to understand the relationship between the structure of the component molecules and the structure of the crystal aggregrate.
