Chetia Monikha, Debnath Swapna, Chowdhury Sumit, Chatterjee Sunanda
Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati Guwahati Assam India 781039
RSC Adv. 2020 Jan 31;10(9):5220-5233. doi: 10.1039/c9ra10395c. eCollection 2020 Jan 29.
The self-assembly of a series of low molecular weight gelator dipeptides containing amino benzoic acid has been studied in mechanistic detail. All four dipeptides form phase selective, thermoreversible, rigid gels in a large range of organic solvents and fuels such as petrol, diesel, and kerosene. The mechanism of self-assembly has been dissected in detail using several experimental techniques. Self-assembly is driven mainly by aromatic and hydrophobic interactions. Hydrogen bonding groups, though present, seem to make a trivial contribution towards the self-assembly process. Phase selective gelation abilities in fuels in the presence of acidic, basic and saline conditions, together with the easy recovery of fuels from the organogels, render the peptides potential candidates for addressing oil-spill recovery. Being electron rich systems, these organogelators can absorb cationic dyes with >90% efficiency from wastewater. Finally, conducting biomaterials have been synthesized by the insertion of reduced graphene oxide into the organogels. Such small peptide based gelator molecules, being economically viable and easy to prepare, in addition to being multifunctional, are a hot area of research in the field of materials chemistry.
对一系列含有氨基苯甲酸的低分子量凝胶剂二肽的自组装进行了详细的机理研究。所有这四种二肽在多种有机溶剂和燃料（如汽油、柴油和煤油）中形成相选择性、热可逆的刚性凝胶。使用多种实验技术对自组装机理进行了详细剖析。自组装主要由芳香族和疏水相互作用驱动。虽然存在氢键基团，但它们对自组装过程的贡献似乎微不足道。在酸性、碱性和含盐条件下在燃料中具有相选择性凝胶化能力，以及从有机凝胶中容易回收燃料，使得这些肽成为解决溢油回收问题的潜在候选物。作为富电子体系，这些有机凝胶剂能够以>90%的效率从废水中吸收阳离子染料。最后，通过将还原氧化石墨烯插入有机凝胶中合成了导电生物材料。这种基于小肽的凝胶剂分子经济可行且易于制备，此外还具有多功能性，是材料化学领域的一个热门研究领域。
