Fumed silica-based organogels and 'aqueous-organic' bigels

We report the use of fumed silica (hydrophilic colloidal silica particles) to generate triglyceride solvent-based soft matter systems (organogels and bigels). Interestingly, the bigels showed a better gel strength compared to organogels while showing a comparatively weaker thixotropic recovery. Electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy were used to understand the microstructure of these new thixotropic molecular gel systems with respect to the fractal-like aggregation of silica particles as well as the percolating network of organic-aqueous phases.