Studies on organogelation of self assembling bis urea type low molecular weight molecules

A novel class of toluene based bis urea compounds carrying linear fatty acid units and semicarbazide linkages has been synthesised. The compounds were exhibiting thermoreversible gelation at concentrations below 10 mg/mL in common organic solvents, both aliphatic and aromatic. The effect of the chain length variation of fatty acid units on gelation properties like gelation concentration, gelation time and gel melting temperatures were studied. Choosing a particular gelator of fixed chain length and a specific solvent, the effect of the concentration on the gelation properties were studied. The thermal studies using DSC revealed the presence of phase transitions corresponding to the premelting and melting of the gels during the heating cycle. The morphology of the xerogels studied using SEM revealed a three dimensional network structure while the WAXS studies showed no crystallinity in the xerogels. IR spectra of the gels (solvent subtracted) and solutions in the corresponding solvent showed that a high degree of inter-molecular H bonding exists and absorptions corresponding to NH stretching shifted to lower wave numbers. Thus simple bisurea type of compounds exhibiting gelation ability in a wide range of solvents can be used for making functional gels for various applications.