Do Molecular Gelators Cluster in Hansen Space?

Hansen solubility parameters (HSP) aid in the a priori prediction of which low molecular weight molecules have the potential to act as low molecular weight organogelators (LMOGs) and can immobilize certain liquids. The hydrogen-bonding HSP parameter individually has some predictive capacity on whether a molecule will form a gel, solution, or precipitate in a known liquid; in the case of benzene, gelators with δ_h > 5 MPa^0.5 form gels, while molecules with δ_h < 10 MPa^0.5 gel ethanol. Small molecules, which gel or remain in a solution state tend to cluster in specific regions of Hansen space. Excellent confinement of solutions was observed within a solubility sphere of benzene, ethanol, and acetonitrile. On the basis of the LMOGs selected, both the magnitude and directionality of the vector in Hansen space are important in predicting the gelation capacity (i.e., a gelator tends to gel toluene Δδ_p < −4 MPa^0.5 when combining the role of Δ2δ_d and Δδ_p and ignoring Δδ_h)

Potential applications of luminescent molecular rotors in food science and engineering

<p>Fluorescent molecular rotors (MRs) are compounds whose emission is modulated by segmental mobility; photoexcitation generates a locally excited (LE), planar state that can relax either by radiative decay (emission of a photon) or by formation of a twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) state that can relax nonradiatively due to internal rotation. If the local environment around the probe allows for rapid internal rotation in the excited state, fast non-radiative decay can either effectively quench the fluorescence or generate a second, red-shifted emission band. Conversely, any environmental restriction to twisting in the excited state due to free volume, crowding or viscosity, slows rotational relaxation and promotes fluorescence emission from the LE state. The environmental sensitivity of MRs has been exploited extensively in biological applications to sense microviscosity in biofluids, the stability and physical state of biomembranes, and conformational changes in macromolecules. The application of MRs in food research, however, has been only marginally explored. In this review, we summarize the main characteristics of fluorescent MRs, their current applications in biological research and their current and potential applications as sensors of physical properties in food science and engineering.</p