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Published on: April 11, 2017
Synthesis and Characterization of Cholesterol-Based Liquid Crystals Linked with Perfluorinated Alkyl Chains
Austin Che1, Carson O Zellmann-Parrotta2, Homayoun Ghaseminezhad2
1Department of Chemistry, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada.
None:
Two cholesterol-based liquid crystalline materials were synthesized by incorporating perfluorinated acyl chains of different lengths with the help of epichlorohydrin and copper(I)-mediated azide-alkyne 2+3 dipolar cycloaddition chemistries. These materials were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, cross-polarized optical microscopy and powder X-ray diffraction. The compound with the longer perfluorinated chain exhibited a smectic A (SmA) phase as confirmed by XRD and POM, while the shorter-chain derivative exhibited diffraction peaks suggestive of both simple SmA* ordering as well as lamellar solid phase exhibiting multilayer ordering.
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