Virtual Booth

Environmental contamination and wound care management remain major challenges and the current approaches often fragmented and single purpose. This innovation introduces a platform concept design using a tunable amino acid-based low-molecular-weight gelators (LMWGs) for a triple action that can be directed into three functions; heavy metal remediation, oil-spill recovery (BioGel Clean) and wound-assisted bioactive delivery scaffold (BioGel Heal). The selected gelator was converted into a porous xerogel adsorbent to act as a smart molecular network, governed by multiple hydrophobic and non-covalent interaction. The preliminary findings revealed approximately ~96% Pb(II) ion removal from a 10ppm solution after 30 min contact time at 150 rpm in a single metal system, while 60-93% removal under multi-element system (Ni(II), Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cr(III) ions) validated its feasibility in a more complex system. The gelator was also evaluated for dyed-oil immobilization using UV-Visible spectroscopy at 515 nm and a recoverable gel-like mass can be separated by simple filtration. The gelator removed ~99% of the dyed oil at the highest concentration tested. On the other hand, BioGel-Heal was prepared in the form of oleogel with selected plant-based oil and hydrophobic bioactive compound, curcumin. Preliminary assessment of HaCaT cytotoxicity using MTT assay revealed that G1 and G2 maintain 60.4 - 78.5% cell viability at the highest concentration after 24h exposure supporting its potential for further wound healing evaluation. Overall, this innovation offers practical proof-of-concept for sustainable and green materials to tackle environmental pollution and wound-care application through structure-guided molecular design.