C2-symmetric benzene-based organogels: A rationally designed LMOG and its application in marine oil spill

- A kind of C2-based organogel is synthesized and characterized by a lot of methods.
- It can gelate with many organic solvents.
- It shows selective gelation of oil (aromatic solvents) in the presence of water.
- It has potential applications for resolving problems such as marine oil spill.

With the efforts to exploit the marine and marine transport development, marine oil spill often happens in the process of marine transportation, which has a great negative effect on the environment. 1,4-Bi(phenylalanine-ethylene glycol monohexyl ether)-benzene (PEB) may be useful to solve this problem, which shows selective gelation of oil from aromatic solvents in the presence of water. A set of techniques including Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and circular dichroism (CD) have been employed to confirm a β-turn arrangement and a fibrous structure of PEB gelators, which is formed through hydrogen bonding, π-π stacking, and van der Waals interactions.