Halogen-Bonding-Triggered Supramolecular Gel Formation

Supramolecular gels are topical soft materials involving the reversible formation of fibrous aggregates using non-covalent interactions. There is significant interest in controlling the properties of such materials by the formation of multicomponent systems, which exhibit non-additive properties emerging from interaction of the components. The use of hydrogen bonding to assemble supramolecular gels in organic solvents is well established. In contrast, the use of halogen bonding to trigger supramolecular gel formation in a two-component gel (‘co-gel’) is essentially unexplored, and forms the basis for this study. Here, we show that halogen bonding between a pyridyl substituent in a bis(pyridyl urea) and 1,4-diiodotetrafluorobenzene brings about gelation, even in polar media such as aqueous methanol and aqueous dimethylsulfoxide. This demonstrates that halogen bonding is sufficiently strong to interfere with competing gel-inhibitory interactions and create a ‘tipping point’ in gel assembly. Using this concept, we have prepared a halogen bond donor bis(urea) gelator that forms co-gels with halogen bond acceptors

Anion-switchable supramolecular gels for controlling pharmaceutical crystal growth

We describe the use of low-molecular-weight supramolecular gels as media for the growth of molecular crystals. Growth of a range of crystals of organic compounds, including pharmaceuticals, was achieved in bis(urea) gels. Low-molecular-weight supramolecular gelators allow access to an unlimited range of solvent systems, in contrast to conventional aqueous gels such as gelatin and agarose. A detailed study of carbamazepine crystal growth in four different bis(urea) gelators, including a metallogelator, is reported. The crystallization of a range of other drug substances, namely sparfloxacin, piroxicam, theophylline, caffeine, ibuprofen, acetaminophen (paracetamol), sulindac and indomethacin, was also achieved in supramolecular gel media without co-crystal formation. In many cases, crystals can be conveniently recovered from the gels by using supramolecular anion-triggered gel dissolution; however, crystals of substances that themselves bind to anions are dissolved by them. Overall, supramolecular gel-phase crystallization offers an extremely versatile new tool in pharmaceutical polymorph screening