Low molecular weight gels: potential in remediation of crude oil spillage and recovery

Abstract

A novel amino acid based gelator compound was developed for the phase-selective gelation of hydrocarbon solvents in a biphasic mixture with water/sea water including crude oils. With the crude oils of varying API gravity ranging from 18.7 to 40.5, the organogelator exhibited an uptake capacity ranging from 50 to 100 times. Thus, a wide range of applicabilities of the gelator to contain and mitigate oil spills of any type of crude oil covering the entire crude basket around the globe is proven for the first time.