Organogelation of plant oils and hydrocarbons by long-chain saturated FA, fatty alcohols, wax esters, and dicarboxylic acids

Conversion of oils into gels generally involves altering the chemical characteristics of the liquid. We describe here the gelling of vegetable oils, essential oils, and hydrocarbons at ambient temperature, without changing the chemical characteristics of the liquids, using saturated FA having carbon chain lengths of 10 to 31. The gelling ability of the added FA increased linearly with their chain lengths. Structure-function studies demonstrated that the carboxyl group, position of an additional hydroxyl group, and acyl chain length played an important role in gelation. Long-chain saturated fatty alcohols, wax esters, and dicarboxylic acids also had the ability to gel plant oils and hydrocarbons.

[1]  K. Markley.  Fatty acids : their chemistry, properties, production, and uses , 1960 .

[2]  J. McCloskey.  [50] Mass spectrometry of lipids and steroids , 1969 .

[3]  Tomoko Mori,et al.  Chiral Mesophases of 12-Hydroxyoctadecanoic Acid in Jelly and in the Solid State. I. A New Type of Lyotropic Mesophase in Jelly with Organic Solvents , 1980 .

[4]  Tomoko Mori,et al.  Chiral mesophases of 12-hydroxyoctadecanoic acid in jelly and in the solid state. II. A new type of mesomorphic solid state. , 1981 .

[5]  P. Terech.  Small-angle-scattering study of 12-hydroxystearic physical organogels and lubricating greases , 1991 .

[6]  Richard G. Weiss,et al.  Low Molecular Mass Gelators of Organic Liquids and the Properties of Their Gels. , 1997, Chemical reviews.

[7]  T. Tamura,et al.  Effect of lecithin on organogel formation of 12-hydroxystearic acid , 1997 .

[8]  G. Nelson.  Dietary fat, trans fatty acids, and risk of coronary heart disease. , 2009, Nutrition reviews.

[9]  F. MacKintosh,et al.  Tuning bilayer twist using chiral counterions , 1999, Nature.

[10]  I. Huc,et al.  Aggregation Properties and Mixing Behavior of Hydrocarbon, Fluorocarbon, and Hybrid Hydrocarbon−Fluorocarbon Cationic Dimeric Surfactants , 2000 .

[11]  B. Feringa,et al.  Geminal bis-ureas as gelators for organic solvents: gelation properties and structural studies in solution and in the gel state , 2000, Chemistry.

[12]  O. Gronwald,et al.  Sugar-Integrated “Supergelators” Which Can Form Organogels with 0.03–0.05% [g mL−1] , 2000 .

[13]  Peter G. Jones,et al.  The unusual molecular organization of 2,3-bis(n-hexyloxy)anthracene in the crystal. A hint to the origin of the gelifying properties of 2,3-bis(n-alkyloxy)anthracenes? , 2001 .

[14]  K. Hanabusa,et al.  Novel family of low molecular weight hydrogelators based on L-lysine derivatives. , 2002, Chemical communications.