Synthesis And Gelation Properties Of The Functional Gelators

Supramolecular gels have become one of the hot topics in Supramolecular Chemistry.By reasonable structure design of the gelator,supramolecular gels can be responsive to external stimuli such as temperature,p H,light and mechanical force.Supramolecular gels can be widely used in the fields of environmental pollution government,drug sustained release,tissue engineering and so on.Supramolecular gels have gradually developed into a kind of functional nanomaterials with broad application prospects.A few novel D-gluconic acetal-based derivatives Gn(n=1,2,3,4)with a free amino or hydroxy group at the terminal position of a long alkyl chain and amino group modified in the middle of a long carbon chain were designed and synthesized.The effect of Hofmeister series on the thixotropy properties and self-assembly mechanisms were investigated.The gelation behaviors,rheological properties and potential applications in the fields of waste water treatment of two-component gel systems obtained by mixing Gn with aliphatic acids were studied.The influence of Hofmeister series on the gelation abilities of Gn hydrogels were carried out.The gel capacity,thermal stability and mechanical properties of Gn hydrogels weakened gradually,by adding Hofmeister ions at certain concentration,from the kosmotropes ions(salt-out ions)to the chaotropes ions(salt-in ions).Based on the correlation between the viscosity B coefficient of aqueous solution and CGCs and analysis of FT-IR,~1H NMR and XRD,the Hofmeistor series not only influence the structure of the bulk water but also interact with the supramolecular aggregates directly.The gelation properties of two-component gel systems based on Gn and a variety of aliphatic acids were studied.The gelation properties and the gel performance can be flexibly tuned by changing the chain length of the alkyl group in aliphatic acid.For instance,G2-A16 exhibited highly efficient self-healing and room temperature phase selective properties.The G2-A16 gelator could be used directly as powder form to selectively gel aromatic solvents(nitrobenzene and o-dichlorobenzene)from their mixtures with wastewater via a simple shaking strategy at room temperature without employing a heating-cooling process and co-solvents.Meanwhile,the two-component gelator can efficiently remove the toxic dyes from the aqueous solution.The dominant factors that drive gelation in the case of the gelator and water or nitrobenzene have been investigated using FT-IR,~1H NMR,and X-ray diffraction(XRD).G2-A16 gel was formed by the synergistic effect of?-?stacking,H-bonding and Van der Waals.Our research provides an efficient two-component approach for the facilely tuning the properties of one-component gel for the realization of high performance functionalities of gels.At the same time,our study demonstrates potential industrial application prospect in pollutant-removing efficiently(such as aromatic solvents and toxic dyes removal).