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From Molecules to Materials: Engineering New Ionic Liquid Crystals Through Halogen Bonding
Published on: March 24, 2018
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Novel Imidazole Liquid Crystals; Experimental and Computational Approaches
Nada S Al-Kadhi1, Fowzia S Alamro1, Saheed A Popoola2
1Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia.
Molecules (Basel, Switzerland)
|July 27, 2022
Summary
New liquid crystalline materials were synthesized and characterized. These compounds exhibit enantiotropic smectic C phases over a range of temperatures, with properties influenced by molecular size.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Organic Chemistry
- Physical Chemistry
Background:
- Liquid crystalline materials are crucial for display technologies and advanced optical devices.
- Understanding structure-property relationships in liquid crystals is key to designing new materials with tailored mesomorphic behaviors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To synthesize novel liquid crystalline materials based on imidazole and benzoate structures.
- To investigate the mesomorphic properties and thermal stability of these synthesized compounds.
- To correlate experimental findings with theoretical calculations of reactivity and thermodynamic parameters.
Main Methods:
- Synthesis of imidazole and benzoate derivatives.
- Structural confirmation using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), and elemental analysis.
- Mesomorphic behavior analysis via Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy.
- Computational investigations including reactivity parameter calculations.
Main Results:
- Successful synthesis and structural elucidation of novel liquid crystalline compounds.
- Observation of enantiotropic smectic C phases across all tested homologues.
- Good thermal stability and broad smectogenic temperature ranges.
- Theoretical calculations supported experimental observations, showing increased polarizability with chain length and size-dependent thermal stability.
Conclusions:
- The synthesized imidazole and benzoate derivatives are promising liquid crystalline materials with stable enantiotropic smectic C phases.
- Molecular size significantly influences the polarizability and thermal stability of these compounds.
- Computational methods effectively complement experimental data in understanding liquid crystal behavior.
