The influence of the structure of terminal groups and cores on the properties of schiff base star-shaped liquid crystals

ABSTRACT

A series of star-shaped liquid crystal (LC), respectively, based on phloroglucinol, pentaerythritol and glucose as cores, rod-shaped molecules (MeOSBAA, MeSBAA and ClSBAA) containing a schiff base as mesogenic mesogen were synthesised. The molecular structures were confirmed by FT-IR and ¹H-NMR techniques. The LC textures and thermal phase behaviours were investigated by polarising optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. The results showed that MeOSBAA and ClSBAA were thermally enantiotropic liquid crystals. Three-arm star LC macromolecules X-SBA3E and four-arm star LC macromolecules X-SBA4E were found to display enantiotropic nematic liquid crystals behaviour. While the five-arm star-shaped chiral LC molecules X-SBA5E exhibited enantiotropic chiral nematic phase.

Graphical abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Synthesis
• star-shaped liquid crystals
• schiff base
• terminal groups
• chiral

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China [N170504018 and N180705004].