A new family of urea-based low molecular-weight organogelators for environmental remediation: the influence of structure

Gelation processes grant access to a wealth of soft materials with tailorable properties, in applications as diverse as environmental remediation, biomedicene and electronics. Several classes of self-assembling gelators have been studied and employ non-covalent bonds to direct assembly, but recently attention has come to focus on how the overall shape of the gelator molecule impacts its gelation. Here we study a new sub-family of low molecular weight organogelators and explore how steric rearrangement influences their gelation. The gels produced are characterised with X-ray diffraction and Small- Angle neutron scattering (SANS) to probe their ex-situ and in-situ gelation mechanisms. The best examples were then tested for environmental remediation applications, gelling petrol and oils in the presence of water and salts