Supramolecular Eutecto Gels: Fully Natural Soft Materials

Abstract

The obtainment of materials featured by high environmental compatibility is one of the main goals of modern research. On this subject, we herein report the first example of supramolecular gel in deep eutectic solvents. In particular, we prepared gels of the L-amino acids isoleucine and tryptophan in choline chloride/phenylacetic acid 1:2. All gel components are readily available and nontoxic. Gels have been fully characterized by standard gelation tests, rheology, X-ray diffraction, morphology and gelation kinetics. Data collected show that gels properties depend on the gelator nature. In particular, gel phases exhibit strong colloidal forces and, this high mechanical resistance, together with their environmental friendly nature, make them promising candidates for applications in all those fields requiring good performance and low environmental impact.

Environmentally Friendly Eutectogels Comprising l‐amino Acids and Deep Eutectic Solvents: Efficient Materials for Wastewater Treatment

“…Kinetic plots reported in Figure a show that in all cases gelation follows a single step mechanism, with no clear evidence of induction times. This is in agreement with what we observed in our previous work for the L‐Ile and L‐Trp‐based eutectogels, at the same concentration . A closer inspection of the plot reveals that the L–Leu based gels display a much higher plateau opacity than those formed by L‐Pro and L‐Phe, suggestive of a higher crystallinity and presence of polydisperse structures .…”

“…Finally, the L‐Phe (Figure c) based gel features a very thick appearance, and no particular morphology could be inferred. It is worth noting that the SEM images relevant to the L‐Ile and L‐Trp at the same concentration displayed different morphologies . This wide diversity of morphologies from amino acid based self‐assembled materials has been recently pointed out in the literature .…”

Highly biodegradable, thermostable eutectogels prepared by gelation of natural deep eutectic solvents using xanthan gum: preparation and characterization

“…However, for the ChCl-Xyl eutectogel, only a few sharp peaks were seen in the diffraction pattern of the sample. As mentioned above, gels cannot effectively be formed in 27 By comparing the XRD patterns of the gels before and aer the xanthan gum was added, the results implied a signicant change in the ordering of NADES, which may be due to the interference of xanthan gum in the original hydrogen bonding network of the solvent. This also validated the aforementioned POM results, that is, the rearrangement of the hydrogen bonding network in NADESs led to the precipitation of crystals.…”

“…23 Especially, xanthan gum has recently attracted great attention as a biomaterial for the preparation of tissue scaffolds (extracellular matrix) for tissue engineering applications. Although there is already a concept of "eutectogel" based on DES and gels formed by chemically synthesized gelators, [24][25][26][27] to the best of our knowledge, there are still only few reports on the formation of polysaccharide-based eutectogels based on NADESs. In particular, the formation mechanism of polysaccharide-based eutectogels remains to be studied.…”

Novel Biocompatible Polysaccharide-Based Eutectogels with Tunable Rheological, Thermal, and Mechanical Properties: The Role of Water

“…The use of hydrogels has extended to various biomedical and pharmaceutical applications, making use of oral, transdermal, and other routes of administration [ 10 ]. Recently, eutectogels have been fabricated via gelation of deep eutectic solvents using a chemically-synthesized gelator; therefore, it is also possible to form gels based on NADESs [ 11 , 12 ]. It has been suggested that NADESs could be the liquid, other than water and oil, found in biological cells [ 7 , 13 ].…”