Novel diphenylacrylonitrile-decorated cyclotriveratrylene columnar liquid crystals with high fluorescence

ABSTRACT

Although some cyclotriveratrylene (CTV) liquid crystals had been reported, the CTV liquid crystal with high fluorescence in mesophase was not presented up to now. By introducing diphenylacrylonitrile units on CTV skeleton, two CTV derivatives with AIE units (7a and 7b) were prepared for the first time. Their structures and crown conformations were characterised by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, MALDI-MS spectra and elemental analysis. Samples 7a and 7b exhibited the reversible liquid crystalline behaviours with hexagonal columnar mesophase supported by the DSC, POM and XRD analysis. The studies on photophysical properties of samples 7a and 7b suggested the high fluorescence in solid state and mesophase. The absolute fluorescence quantum yield of 7b in mesophase was as high as 0.45. This work not only reported the first CTV liquid crystals with high fluorescence in aggregated state but also provided a good strategy for constructing the novel CTV liquid crystals with excellent fluorescence.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Diphenylacrylonitrile
• cyclotriveratrylene
• mesophase
• fluorescence

Acknowledgements

Financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [No: 21406036], Fujian Science and Technology Project [No. 2019N0010] and Undergraduate innovation program of FJNU (2020) were greatly acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02678292.2024.2302451.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.