Non-conventional multi-arm ester liquid crystal derived from cholic acid: synthesis, thermal and optical behaviour

ABSTRACT

With cholic acid as the core, five multi-arm ester liquid crystals were synthesised with different terminal substituents. B₁–B₅ were mesogenic arms which were linked to multifunctional chiral core cholic acid. The effect of electron-withdrawing and electron-donating groups on the mesogenic behaviour of the compounds was discussed. All products were structurally well characterised by elemental analysis, ¹HNMR, and FT-IR. The phase behaviours were investigated by means of polarised optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. B₂, B₄, B₅ and C₂, C₄, C₅ and D₂, D₄, D₅ exhibited typical nematic texture and belonged to thermotropic enantiotropic nematic liquid crystals. B₃, C₃ and D₃ also displayed typical nematic texture of thermotropic monotropic nematic liquid crystal. B₁, C₁ and D₁ did not have mesogenic performance. Wider mesogenic range for 81.6°C of C₅ whose terminal substituent is nitro on heating cycle while 121.1°C on cooling cycle. The results indicated that terminal substituents have a pretty important effect on the mesogenic phase and range of multi-arm liquid crystal compounds. The mesomorphic behaviour of compounds with polar groups terminally substituted performance much better than those without polar groups. In this ester multi-arm liquid crystal system, electron-withdrawing groups terminally substituted behave better than those electron-donating groups substituted.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Multi-arm liquid crystals
• ester
• synthesis
• polar substituent

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities: [Grant Number N160504001] and National Natural Science Fund of China: [Grant Number 51273035].