Novel Thermotropic Mesophases of Copper Complexes with Long-Chain Aliphatic Amines

Abstract

A novel class of liquid crystalline complexes was prepared by the interaction of copper nitrate with long-chain primary amines (such as octyl-, decyl-, dodecyl- and octadecylamine) or with the secondary didodecylamine. Analysis has shown that primary amines form tetracoordinated complexes, whereas, with the secondary one the ratio of copper to ligand was 1:2. The mesomorphic phase behavior of the complexes was established by optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry and it was found to depend, as expected, on the amine employed for their synthesis. Further work with X-ray diffraction and other techniques is in progress for a more complete identification of these new mesophases.