Sugar based amphiphiles: easily accessible and efficient crude oil spill thickening agents

a simple, single-step, enzymatic catalysis that required no purification. The results showed that, after a rigorous and systematic testing, the mannitol-derived amphiphile using 8-carbon alkyl chain length (M-8) turned out to be the best crude oil PSG among the studied amphiphiles. M-8 demonstrated a versatility towards thickening of different crude oil types, an efficient ability towards selective gelation of the oil (forming crude oil gel that is over sixty-one-times its mass and stable up to 109.7 °C) in a crude oil/water mixture, and an ability to form gel under practical situations such as seawater conditions. These qualities, in addition to the use of a simple and environmentally benign method to synthesize the structuring agents, make this amphiphile very practical in real life application.