Self Assembling Peptides and Amino Acids based Soft Materials: Functional Gels and Charge Transfer Complexes

This thesis describes the formation of supramolecular hydrogels and organogels from different synthetic amino acid based amphiphiles and semiconducting organic moiety named naphthalenediimide appended peptide based derivatives. Amino acid and peptide derivatives have been synthesized, purified, characterized and studied in details. Their gelation ability in different aqueous and organic (aromatic/aliphatic) solvents has been studied extensively. These gelator molecules self-associated using various non-covalent interactions including intermolecular hydrogen bonds, electrostatic interactions, - staking etc. to form fibrillar assembly that can encapsulate solvent molecules into their interstitial pores to form self-supported gels. These gel materials have been characterized morphologically, structurally and rheologically. Furthermore, different kinds of applications of these gel materials have been explored.Research was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Arindam Banerjee of the Biological Chemistry division under SBS [School of Biological Sciences]Research was conducted under CSIR fellowshi