Mesomorphic behaviour of praseodymium(III) alkanoates

In this paper, we describe the synthesis, characterization and thermal beha viour of praseodymium(III) alkanoates. The compounds have the stoichiometry [Pr(CxH2x+1COO)(3)], where x = 5-19, and were characterized by elemental a nalysis and infrared spectroscopy. The thermal behaviour was investigated b y hot-stage polarizing optical microscopy, DSC and high temperature X-ray d iffraction. A highly viscous mesophase M and a smectic A phase were observe d for the shorter chain compounds (x = 5-8), whereas only a smectic A phase was observed for the longer chain compounds of this type of metallomesogen s. The chain length has a pronounced effect on the transition temperatures.