Abstract

The migration of octanethiol, decanethiol and dodecanethiol guest molecules included in the cavities of the channel-type structure of α-cyclodextrin matrix in the presence of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was studied by powder X-ray diffraction. This behaviour has been called metallic nanoparticle tropism. The phenomena behaviour can be associated to the guest (thiol group)-AuNP interaction. This is evidenced by an increase of the lattice parameters, especially the c-axis, because to that AuNPs induce a shift of the guest molecule left outside the (001) plane, stabilising the nanoparticle and arranging them in an ordered way. © 2009 Taylor & Francis.