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Abstract
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Abstract: An oleylamide based gelator was developed for the removal of oil spills from top of water via formation of organogel by self-assembly. The gelator was synthesized in two steps, by activation of oleic acid with thionyl chloride, followed by amidation with 4-hydroxyaniline. The gelator was able to form organogels in the presence of organic solvent and the xerogel formed by evaporating the solvent from organogel was able to adsorb oil spills on top of the water and remove the pollution. However, most phase selective gelators require a heat–cool cycle or addition of a co-solvent, which is not applicable to oil recovery from open water sources, or could lead to further addition of relatively large volumes of undesirable or toxic solvents into the environment. Reported oleylamide based gelator formed organogels in different organic solvents, such as pentane, hexane, heptane, decane and CCl4, by self-assembly. Xerogels, obtained by evaporation of organic solvents of organogels under reduced pressure, showed excellent phase-selective gelation properties of organic solvents on top of water at room temperature, by simple mixing, in which neither heating nor addition of a co-solvent was required. The effect of different parameters, including gelator concentration, temperature, salinity and pH on the removing of oil spills were investigated, which revealed that each molecule of gelator captured eight molecules of hexane, as 0.1 g of gelator can gelate 3 mL of hexane. Adsorbing the spill of hexane on top of the water under stationary (a) and shaking (b) conditions is shown below.
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