Effect of hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction on the formation of supramolecular hydrogels formed by l-phenylalanine derivative hydrogelator

A new hydrogelator, pyridinium bromide salt of N-6-bromohexanoyl-l-phenylamino octadecane, was synthesized. Supramolecular hydrogels can be formed through the self-assembly of this hydrogelator in water. In this work, D2O was used instead of H2O as solvent for FT-IR measurement due to the fact that it is impossible to obtain useful FT-IR information on the hydrogen bonding in water. The investigation of FT-IR and steady-state fluorescence indicated that the driving forces for the self-assembly were mainly hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interaction. Based on the data of XRD and molecular modeling, the possible mechanism of the formation of hydrogelator aggregates was proposed.