LAUSR

We have presented a simple method for situ fabrication of photoluminescent lanthanide metallogels. A series of lanthanide metallogels could be rapidly formed through mixing the aqueous solution of Tb 3+ or Eu 3+ and organic solution of synthesized aromatic carboxylic ligands ( DCn , n  = 14, 16,18) at room temperature. The gelation tests revealed that the ligand with longer alkyl chain ( DC18 ) showed stronger gelling abilities, indicating that the structure of non-coordinated groups in ligand molecules could affect self-assembly processes and, hence, the microstructures and properties of lanthanide metallogels. FT-IR measurements demonstrated that the driving force of formation of the metallogels was the coordination interaction between DCn and Tb 3+ or Eu 3+ . XRD analysis revealed that DC14 metallogels took a mixture of hexagonal and tetragonal packing modes. All obtained metallogels have shown typical luminescent emissions of the lanthanide complex. In particular, DC18 /Tb(NO 3 ) 3 metallogel in DMF/H 2 O ( v : v =  1:1) has shown excellent self-supporting, self-healing, film-forming, and rheological properties. Graphical abstract The Tb 3+ /Eu 3+ metallogels have been formed with aromatic carboxylic acids as ligands, and they have shown excellent luminescent, self-healing, film-forming, and rheological properties.