Doping of inosine in guanosine dihydrate and its effects on reversible water harvesting property

Abstract Guanosine (GR) dihydrate and inosine (IR) dihydrate have similar crystal structure, water molecules are almost at the same locations in them. GR dihydrate has the reversible dehydration/hydration property and is a good candidate for materials harvesting water from atmosphere. IR dihydrate is not stable and can be easily transformed to anhydrous IR α form. In this work, doping of IR in GR dihydrate in all the range was realized for the first time by using a solution method. The successful preparation of doped dihydrate of IR and GR by the solution method was attributed to the similar molecular conformations of IR and GR in solution. The doped dihydrates could maintain the reversible dehydration/hydration property similar to pure GR dihydrate even the ratio of IR was up to 71.1 ± 1.2 mol% under a mild drying treatment with freeze-dry. A pure amorphous GR was prepared by ball milling, and it showed a similar dehydration/hydration property to GR dihydrate with a lower dehydration temperature (about 84 °C). The implementation of doping IR in GR dihydrate would shed light on the design and fabrication of functional doped organic crystals. And study on the structural insights and the dehydration/hydration processes of the doped dihydrates and the pure amorphous GR would shed light on the design and fabrication of novel hydrogen-bonded organic frameworks (HOFs) materials for water harvesting.