316
R. G. Weiss
7.9 Final Thoughts About the Scope and Intent of This
Chapter
Unapologetically, this chapter relies more heavily on reports from research in the
author’s laboratory than a balanced rendering of the references warrants. That reliance
is a result only of the author’s familiarity and is not intended to be a balanced
assessment of the importance of the contributions of others to the field.
With that in mind, this chapter is intended to describe what molecular gels are
structurally and mechanically, and the known limits of both properties, and to describe
the clear challenges to advancing the field; it is not intended to be a comprehensive
treatise. It presents a description of what molecular gels are and how one can ascertain
the difference them and other phases that depend on aggregation. It also describes
some of the challenges confronting our ability to characterize them and, more importantly, how to design molecular gelators a priori and their interactions with the
liquid components along the pathways starting from sols. Although molecular gels,
comprised of (‘0-D’) gelator molecules, are intrinsically weaker mechanically than
their polymeric gel analogues (in which at least one-dimension of the gel structure
is always present through covalent intermolecular interactions among ‘monomers’),
they offer some potential advantages and opportunities. Foremost among these is
their ease of reversibility that makes possible many interesting applications, some of
which are described in several of the references cited here.
Acknowledgements RGW is extremely grateful to the many students in his laboratory and collaborators throughout the world who have helped to advance the field of this research and have been
his educational guides. Much of the research from the lab at Georgetown would not have been
possible without the financial support of the US National Science Foundation, most recently Grant
CHE-1502856. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of two recently deceased outstanding scientists whose research in fields related to molecular gels has been inspirational to those directly in it.
They are Kailasam Venkatesan of India (29 April 1932–31 December 2019) and Faruk Jose Nome
Aguilera of Brazil who was born in Chile (29 May 1947–24 September 2018).
References
1. Smith, D.K.: In: Weiss, R.G. (ed.) Molecular Gels. Royal Society of Chemistry, United
Kingdom, chap 9 (2018)
2. (a) Hamley, I. W.: Introduction to Soft Matter. Wiley: Chichester. (b) Liu, X.Y., Li, J.L. (eds)
Soft Fibrillar Materials. Wiley, Singapore (2013). (c) Doi, M.: Soft Matter Physics. Oxford
University Press, Oxford (2013). (d) Miller, W.L., Cacciuto, A.: Exploiting classical nucleation
theory for reverse self-assembly. J. Chem. Phys. 133, 234108 (2010)
3. Marangoni, A.G., Garti, N. (eds.): Edible Oleogels, 2nd edn. AOCS Press, London (2018)
4. Ruiz-Palomero, C., Kennedy, S.R., Soriano, M.L., Jones, C.D., Valcarcel, M., Steed, J.W.:
Pharmaceutical crystallization with nanocellulose organogels. Chem. Commun. 52, 7782–7785
(2016)
5. Clark, J.B.: US Patent 2,596,844 13 May 1952
6. Fieser, L.F., Harris, G.C., Hershberg, E.B., Morgana, M., Novello, F.C.: Putnam ST Napalm.
Ind. Eng. Chem. 38, 768–773 (1946)
R. G. Weiss
7.9 Final Thoughts About the Scope and Intent of This
Chapter
Unapologetically, this chapter relies more heavily on reports from research in the
author’s laboratory than a balanced rendering of the references warrants. That reliance
is a result only of the author’s familiarity and is not intended to be a balanced
assessment of the importance of the contributions of others to the field.
With that in mind, this chapter is intended to describe what molecular gels are
structurally and mechanically, and the known limits of both properties, and to describe
the clear challenges to advancing the field; it is not intended to be a comprehensive
treatise. It presents a description of what molecular gels are and how one can ascertain
the difference them and other phases that depend on aggregation. It also describes
some of the challenges confronting our ability to characterize them and, more importantly, how to design molecular gelators a priori and their interactions with the
liquid components along the pathways starting from sols. Although molecular gels,
comprised of (‘0-D’) gelator molecules, are intrinsically weaker mechanically than
their polymeric gel analogues (in which at least one-dimension of the gel structure
is always present through covalent intermolecular interactions among ‘monomers’),
they offer some potential advantages and opportunities. Foremost among these is
their ease of reversibility that makes possible many interesting applications, some of
which are described in several of the references cited here.
Acknowledgements RGW is extremely grateful to the many students in his laboratory and collaborators throughout the world who have helped to advance the field of this research and have been
his educational guides. Much of the research from the lab at Georgetown would not have been
possible without the financial support of the US National Science Foundation, most recently Grant
CHE-1502856. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of two recently deceased outstanding scientists whose research in fields related to molecular gels has been inspirational to those directly in it.
They are Kailasam Venkatesan of India (29 April 1932–31 December 2019) and Faruk Jose Nome
Aguilera of Brazil who was born in Chile (29 May 1947–24 September 2018).
References
1. Smith, D.K.: In: Weiss, R.G. (ed.) Molecular Gels. Royal Society of Chemistry, United
Kingdom, chap 9 (2018)
2. (a) Hamley, I. W.: Introduction to Soft Matter. Wiley: Chichester. (b) Liu, X.Y., Li, J.L. (eds)
Soft Fibrillar Materials. Wiley, Singapore (2013). (c) Doi, M.: Soft Matter Physics. Oxford
University Press, Oxford (2013). (d) Miller, W.L., Cacciuto, A.: Exploiting classical nucleation
theory for reverse self-assembly. J. Chem. Phys. 133, 234108 (2010)
3. Marangoni, A.G., Garti, N. (eds.): Edible Oleogels, 2nd edn. AOCS Press, London (2018)
4. Ruiz-Palomero, C., Kennedy, S.R., Soriano, M.L., Jones, C.D., Valcarcel, M., Steed, J.W.:
Pharmaceutical crystallization with nanocellulose organogels. Chem. Commun. 52, 7782–7785
(2016)
5. Clark, J.B.: US Patent 2,596,844 13 May 1952
6. Fieser, L.F., Harris, G.C., Hershberg, E.B., Morgana, M., Novello, F.C.: Putnam ST Napalm.
Ind. Eng. Chem. 38, 768–773 (1946)