Synthesis, characterisation and phase transition studies in N-(-4-ethyloxybenzylydene)-4’-alkoxyanilines

ABSTRACT

Synthesis and characterisation are carried out in N-(-4-ethyloxybenzylidene)-4ʹ-alkoxyanilines, 2O.Om liquid crystalline (LC) compounds with m = 3, 4 and 6–10. All the compounds exhibit monovariant nematic phase except with m = 10; the LC material shows bivariant nematic-smectic-C in addition to the nematic phase. Further, the variation in density with temperature in all these seven compounds is studied. The density and thermal expansion coefficient results reveal that the phase transitions, namely isotropic to nematic and nematic to SmC, present in these compounds show first-order nature as expected and that all the parameters show characteristic change in the vicinity of the phase transformation. The results are discussed in the light of the data available on other nO.Om compounds.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Density studies
• phase transitions
• thermal expansion coefficient
• Schiff bases

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.