ABSTRACT
Anthraquinones are known to exhibit mesomorphism upon appropriate substitutions. In this report, the concept of ionic self-assembly has been applied to design and synthesise new anthraquinone-based liquid crystals. Four different anthraquinones were used as polyelectrolytes which form ionic complexes with double-tail ammonium surfactants. The chemical structures were characterised by spectral techniques and elemental analysis. The thermal behaviour of the complexes was investigated by polarising optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis and X-ray diffraction studies. All these complexes display lamellar mesomorphism. The amphotropic nature of the complexes has also been studied.
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
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Acknowledgements
We thank Prof. V. Lakshminarayanan for his useful suggestions, Mrs. Vasudha, K, N and Dr. Srinivasa. H.T, Dr. Vijayaraghavan for technical support and Dr. A. JayaKumar & Mr. Madhukar. S. Ms. Meera Thomas, Ms. Sreeja Sasidharan for their valuable help in data analysis.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Supplemental material
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