Synthesis, Characterization, and Self-Assembly of a Tetrathiafulvalene (TTF)–Triglycyl Derivative

The incorporation of other molecular building blocks commonly used to form physical gels [64,65,66,67] or the use of metal–organic interactions [68,69,70] have also been employed to form TTF-based gels. [...]the inclusion of hydrophobic aliphatic chains is also employed to facilitate van der Waals interactions and stabilize the supramolecular aggregates [58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]. [...]the presence of aromatic rings on the peptide linked to the TTF unit is not a requirement for the formation of supramolecular gels using TTF-peptide conjugates. The critical gelation concentrations ranged from ~5 to 50 g/L, and the thermal gel-to-sol transition temperatures varied from ~36 to 51 °C. FE-SEM imaging of the xerogels, prepared by freeze-drying the organogels, showed fibrillar microstructures with distinctive features depending on the solvent used to prepare the gels. [...]the viscoelastic and brittle nature of a model gel system was also supported by dynamic rheological experiments. [...]UV-vis-NIR analysis of a model xerogel confirmed the oxidation of the TTF unit upon exposure to I2 vapor.