Highly Efficient Recovery of Oils in Water via Serine-Based Organogelators

We report here the gelation of a series of petroleum products by serine derivatives. Among Fmoc (9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl) amino acids modified by long-chain amines with different substituents, serine-based compounds exhibit excellent performance in gel formation. Further studies on the variation of serine-based gelators demonstrate a considerable structure–property relationship between oil gelation performance and the molecular structure. Oils could be separated and collected by acid and distillation. Gelators exhibit the potential to be applied in an effective treatment of oil-containing water produced from frequent marine oil spills.