The thermal stability and molecular structural changes of a intermolecularhydrogen bonded liquid crystal compound

In order to investigate the thermal stability of the intermolecular hydroge n bonding and the molecular structure changes during the phase transition p rocess, we studied liquid crystal compound DBS:BD:DBS induced by intermolec ular hydrogen bonding between trans-butene diacid (proton donor) and 4-(2,3 ,4-tridecyloxybenzoyloxy)-4'-stilbazoles (proton acceptor) using the temper ature-dependent FT-IR and FT-Raman spectroscopy. The results show that the intermolecular hydrogen bonding is stable in the liquid crystalline phase b ut becomes slightly decompositive when temperature is higher than its clear ing point. As the temperature increasing, the number of the gauche conforma tion is also increasing, when it is coming to the isotropic phase, the alky l chain is in disorder state. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights res erved.