Solid state studies of the assembly of diionic guanidinium/carboxylate compounds

Reported herein are the solid state studies of guanidinium/carboxylate salts or the zwitterionic species derived from amino acids. It was disclosed that carboxylates tend to bond to the two unsubstituted external guanidine (N-H)s, adopting assembly modes A and C depending on the geometry of the linkers. Bonding of carboxylate to the internal (N-H)s was observed only when the external (N-H)s are not available as in 5. This work may be useful for the development of complex linear particularly helical structures and dimeric structures in polar solvents.