THE EFFECT OF SUBSTITUENT POSITION ON THE LIQUID-CRYSTALLINE PROPERTIES OF DODECYL-D-XYLITOLS

Recently we have been concerned with a systematic and fundamental inve stigation into the effects of the linking group on the lyotropic and t hermotropic properties of aliphatic substituted acyclic carbohydrate s ystems. For this purpose, we chose to study the self-assembling behavi our of alkyl substituted xylitols where the aliphatic chain was attach ed to the xylitol moiety via ether, ester and thioether linkages. We h ave extended this work and, in this current study, we report the effec ts on the self-assembling properties of sequentially moving the positi on of a dodecyl chain in acyclic x-O-dodecyl-D-xylitols. This work was used for a direct comparison with results reported on cyclic systems such as the dodecyl x-O-beta-D-glucopyranosides.