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The current approach to designing low‐molecular‐weight gelators relies on a laborious trial‐and‐error process, mainly because of the lack of an accurate description of the noncovalent interactions crucial for supramolecular gelation. In this work, we report a multiscale bottom‐up approach composed of several computational techniques to unravel the key interactions in a library of synthesized bis‐urea‐based gelators and rationalize their experimentally observed hydrogelation performance. In addition to density functional theory calculations and molecular dynamics, the noncovalent interaction index is applied as a tool to visualise and identify the different types of noncovalent interactions. Interestingly, as well as hydrogen bonds between urea moieties, hydrogen bonds between a urea moiety and a pyridine ring were shown to play a detrimental role in the early aggregation phase. These findings enabled us to explain the hydrogelation performance observed in a library of twelve bis‐urea derivatives, which were synthesized with 58–95 % yields. From this library, three compounds were discovered to effectively gel water, with the most efficient hydrogelator only requiring a concentration of 0.2 w/v%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: aggregation; gels; molecular dynamics; noncovalent interactions; self-assembly A combination of computational techniques, such as density functional theory, molecular dynamics and the noncovalent interaction index, is used to virtually zoom in on the self-assembly behavior of these molecules. Aggregation, gels, molecular dynamics, noncovalent interactions, self-assembly. [Extracted from the article]