SANS investigation into structure and mechanism of low molecular weight organogelators (LMWOs)

The aim of this research is to study the self-assembly mechanism and arising structures for a range of low molecular weight organogelators (LMWOs). The structural characteristics of the gelators will be varied and the correlated molecular properties with gel properties through chemical modification, temperature, concentration and solvent variation will be examined using SANS. Preliminary SANS results (Figure 2a-b) indicate that the gelation temperature is concentration dependent, and the molecular self-assembly process is reversible as the temperature cycle of heating/cooling does not affect the aggregation structure.本研究旨在探究一系列低分子量有机凝胶因子（low molecular weight organogelators, LMWOs）的自组装机制及其形成的聚集结构。研究将通过化学修饰、温度、浓度与溶剂调控来改变凝胶因子的结构特征，并借助小角中子散射（Small Angle Neutron Scattering, SANS）分析凝胶性能与分子特性之间的关联规律。初步的小角中子散射结果（图2a-b）表明，凝胶化温度具有浓度依赖性，且分子自组装过程具备可逆性——升降温循环并不会对其聚集结构产生影响。