Synthesis and gel properties of sorbitol derivative gelators

Abstract

1, 3:2, 4-di-p-methylbenzylidene-D-sorbitol (MDBS) is known to be an efficient sorbitol derivative gelator. Two new sorbitol derivative gelators were designed and synthesized in contrast to MDBS in order to study the gel properties of gelators with different structures. Their gelation behavior to 30 solvents was investigated. It was found that the gelation behavior was related to the molecular structure of gelators. Compared with MDBS, the gelator with more hydroxyl in the molecular structure could gel water and that with more aromatic ring could gel aromatic solvent. The fibrous and three-dimensional network of the gels was obtained by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Ultravioletvisible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy revealed that π-π interaction was one of the main driving forces for the formation of gels. The π-π stacking of gelation increases with the number of aromatic rings in the molecular structure of gelator. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy revealed that the hydrogen bonding was also the main driving force for the formation of gels. The layered structure of the gels was studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD).

Keywords

low molecular mass organic gelator / sorbitol derivative / self-assembling

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