title: Alkyl bicarbamates supramolecular organogelators with effective selective gelation and high oil recovery from oil/water mixtures.
abstract: A series of alkyl bicarbamates supramolecular organogelators were synthesized with different structures and lengths of alkyl chains. The driving forces for the self-assembly of small molecules, including the intermolecular H bonding, π-π stacking and van der Waals interactions, played an important role in the formation of different 3D network structures, i.e., fibers, ribbons, sheets, and prisms. And a probable formation process of the gel networks was proposed. Furthermore, the phase-selective gelling performances were investigated for oil removal from aqueous solution. Interestingly, the gelling properties were found to be affected by the length and structure of alkyl chains, while some gelators with intermediate alkyl chain lengths could effectively gel all the tested oils from water surface within 15 min, such as Russian crude oil, diesel, gasoline, soybean oil, peanut oil, olive oil, cyclohexane, hexane and ethyl acetate. Advantageously, fast gelation, high rate of oil removal (>95%) and excellent oil retention rate (close to 100%) were realized in the recovery of oil spills from water surface. This kind of supramolecular gelators demonstrates good potential applications in the delivery or removal of organic pollution from oil/water mixtures.
authors.affiliation: MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Yongzhen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Songquan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Integrated Composites Laboratory (ICL), Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
authors.forename: Xingru
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China. Electronic address: liuyy@hit.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yuyan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Integrated Composites Laboratory (ICL), Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA. Electronic address: nanomaterials2000@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Zhanhu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Guo
mesh_terms: D002219:Carbamates / Q000737:chemistry*; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation / Q000379:methods*; D005782:Gels / Q000737:chemistry*; D009821:Oils / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D059392:Petroleum Pollution; D012426:Russia; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D002219:Carbamates; D005782:Gels; D009821:Oils; D014867:Water
keywords: Alkyl bicarbamate; Oil recovery; Self-assembly; Supramolecular gelator