Crystalline Fibers of Metal-Peptide Double Ladders

Despite remarkable progress in the field of MOFs, structures based on long-flexible organic linkers are scarce and the majority of such materials rely on rigid linkers. In this work, crystals of a new metal–organic double ladder (MODL) are obtained by linking a pentapeptide (NH2-Glu-pCO2Phe-pCO2Phe-Ala-Gly-OH) with cadmium acetate to produce a Cd(2-pyrrolidone-pCO2Phe-pCO2Phe-Ala-Gly)(H2O)3 framework. SEM and TEM analyses show the fibrous nature of the crystals and show that the infinite cadmium oxide rod secondary building units (SBUs) are aligned with the longitudinal axis of the nanofibers.