Toward well-organised ionic discotic liquid crystals via versatile supramolecular approach

ABSTRACT

Various ordered structures of crystalline three-dimensional (3D) cubic, 2D columnar or 1D lamellar mesophases have been facilely achieved through host–guest interactions of electrically neutral host tris(18-crown-6)triphenylene and guest potassium sulfonates with alkyl tails of variant number and length. The convenient construction of functionalised ionic complexes and the flexibility of such a supramolecular approach offer a wide variety of possibilities to prepare various ordered functional soft materials, especially those in their 2D ordered columnar liquid crystalline mesophases may serve as promising electron and ion dual-channel transport organic electronic materials.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Discotic liquid crystal
• crown ether
• ionic complex
• supramolecular assembly
• host–guest interaction
• ordered columnar structure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21574062) and also partially by Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (PCSIRT).