Spontaneous enrichment of organic molecules from aqueous and gas phases into stable metallogel

This paper reports a dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) phase offered by a coordination polymer gel that consists of metal ions and a calixarene that has multiple binding sites. This metallogel, virtually 98% of which is DMSO, has high stability in aqueous solution over a wide range of pH (1-13), even at 100 degreesC, rejects ions (almost) completely, and allows nonionic organic molecules spontaneously enriching into it with high efficiency, up to similar to60 times enrichment from aqueous solution and similar to2000 times enrichment from the gas phase.