Title
Non-Steroidal Biphenyl Gelators: Correlation of Xerogel Structure with Solid-State Structure and Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy
Author
H. Cristina Geiger, David K. Geiger, William R. Roberts, Dominic L. Morell, Paul Huttunen, Jennifer L. Schulman, Melanie Tran, Dori Farthing
Year
2018
Journal
Gels
Abstract
Because the factors favoring the formation of well-formed single crystals are dissimilar to those conducive to gel formation, few examples of single-crystal structural characterizations of organogelators are found in the literature. A series of biphenyl methyl and ethyl diester derivatives of varying chain length were synthesized and their gelation abilities explored. X-ray diffraction of single crystals of one of the gelators reveals a columnar extended structure. Based on XRD results for xerogels obtained from the reported organogelators, the members of the series are isostructural and so also adopt a columnar superstructure. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used for the investigation of the morphology of the xerogels, which display either platelet-like morphologies or more typical entangled twisted ribbon-like aggregates. The gels exhibit chirality, which depends on the sol-gel transition history, as observed by induced circular dichroism (ICD) spectroscopy.
Full Article
Instrument
J-815
Keywords
Circular dichroism, Induced circular dichroism, Cotton effect, Thermal stability, Aggregation, Materials