Synthesis and self-assembly of coumarin-chalcone derivatives organogels

Dye pollution creates a serious problem for the environment by destroying ecosystems. To protect the environment, three novel coumarin-chalcone derived organogelators Y1-3 were designed and synthesized with different hydrophobic alkyl units. Organogelators Y1-3 exhibit gelation behavior in tert-butanol, isopropanol, nbutanol, ethyl acetate and tert-amyl alcohol. The XRD, FT-IR and SEM studies speculated the presence of p- p stacking, Van der Waals interaction and intermolecular H-bonding in the self-assembly of gels Y1-3. The increase of alkyl chain made the lamellar network structure of the xerogel larger and the gap increase, which was beneficial to the adsorption of dyes in water. Gels Y1-3 reveal irreversible gelation behavior after UV light.