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From Molecules to Materials: Engineering New Ionic Liquid Crystals Through Halogen Bonding
Published on: March 24, 2018
Liquid crystalline phases of 1,2-dimethyl-3-hexadecylimidazolium bromide and binary mixtures with water
Cuihua Li1, Jinhua He, Jianhong Liu
1College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China. licuihuasz@163.com
Abstract:
1,2-Dimethyl-3-hexadecylimidazolium bromide, which lacks an acidic proton at the C-2 imidazolium ring position, exhibits thermotropic SmA(2) phase behavior above its melting point of 90.3 degrees C and up to 232.1 degrees C. The corresponding layer spacing and the full width at half maximum from XRD patterns display a temperature dependence. In binary mixtures with water, over a concentration range of 40-75%, lyotropic liquid crystalline phases form between 0.5 and 25 degrees C. The molecules of the new ionic liquid (IL) in the binary mixtures show three different self-assembly processes, namely, formation of rod micelles, coexistence of rod micelles and a hexagonal phase, and a pure hexagonal phase. The distance between the two centers of adjacent columns of cylinder units remains nearly constant at 4.97+/-0.04nm when the IL content exceeds 70%, indicating that the cylinder units attain a dense and highly ordered packing.
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