Issue 28, 2018

Impact of “half-crown/two carbonyl”–Ca2+ metal ion interactions of a low molecular weight gelator (LMWG) on its fiber to nanosphere morphology transformation with a gel-to-sol phase transition

Abstract

We report here a smart functional low molecular weight gelator (LMWG) L, containing an unusual metal ion coordination site, i.e. “half-crown/two carbonyl”. The gelator L shows excellent gelation behavior with typical fibrillar morphology in acetonitrile, methanol and ethanol media. Upon Ca2+ ion binding with its “half-crown/two carbonyl” coordination site, the acetonitrile gel of L exhibits a fiber to nanosphere morphology transformation along with a gel-to-sol phase transition as confirmed by microscopic investigation and by direct naked eye visualization, respectively. The mechanism involved in this morphology transformation and gel-to-sol phase transition process was studied thoroughly with the help of computational calculations and various spectroscopic experiments and discussed.

Graphical abstract: Impact of “half-crown/two carbonyl”–Ca2+ metal ion interactions of a low molecular weight gelator (LMWG) on its fiber to nanosphere morphology transformation with a gel-to-sol phase transition

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
24 May 2018
Accepted
23 Jun 2018
First published
25 Jun 2018

Soft Matter, 2018,14, 5821-5831

Impact of “half-crown/two carbonyl”–Ca2+ metal ion interactions of a low molecular weight gelator (LMWG) on its fiber to nanosphere morphology transformation with a gel-to-sol phase transition

A. Maity, A. Dey, M. K. Si, B. Ganguly and A. Das, Soft Matter, 2018, 14, 5821 DOI: 10.1039/C8SM01071D

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