The synthesis and characterization of new 4-[(2-alkyl)-2H-tetrazol-5-yl]phenyl 4-alkyloxybenzoates (5a–i) and 5-{4-[(4-substituted)benzyloxy]phenyl}-2-alkyl-2H-tetrazoles (7a–e) are reported. The reported tetrazoles contain two alkyl chains (six to ten carbon atoms) except for 5h and 7e which have a chiral citronellyl group linked at the N-2 nitrogen atom of the tetrazole ring and 5i having a b...

Lipid lamellar mesophases and their colloidal dispersions (liposomes) are increasingly being deployed in vivo as drug delivery vehicles, and also as models of biological membranes in fundamental biophysics studies. The permeability and diffusion of small molecules such as drugs is accommodated by a change in local curvature and molecular packing (mesophase behaviour) of the bilayer membrane mol...

Surfactant-templated silica thin films are potentially important materials for applications such as chemical sensing. However, a serious limitation for their use in aqueous environments is their poor hydrolytic stability. One convenient method of increasing the resistance of mesoporous silica to water degradation is addition of alumina, either doped into the pore walls during material synthesis...

Successive mesophase transformation induced by an anionic surfactant such as sodium dioctyl sulfosuccinate (AOT) has been demonstrated to fabricate four kinds of large pore mesoporous silica materials in a triblock copolymer F127 surfactant assembly system. The transformation of the highly ordered mesostructures from face-centered cubic (space group Fm3̄m) to body-centered Im3̄m then towards two-...

The Open University's repository of research publications and other research outputs Metal-directed columnar phase formation in tetrahedral zinc(II) and manganese(II) metallomesogens Journal Article (2008). Metal-directed columnar phase formation in tetrahedral zinc(II) and manganese(II) metallomesogens. Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual aut...

The developing interfacial region between a soap bar and water has been studied using a suite of spatially resolved NMR techniques. Stray field imaging (STRAFI) allowed the dynamics of water ingress into a shop-bought, commercial soap to be followed. A simplistic analysis of the data shows the ingress to be a Fickian process (∝t1/2) in the first 4 h. The T2 contrast employed in the STRAFI metho...

Photosensitive films incorporating molecular photoacid generators compartmentalized within a silica-surfactant mesophase were prepared by an evaporationinduced self-assembly process. UV-exposure promoted localized acid-catalyzed siloxane condensation, enabling selective etching of unexposed regions, thereby serving as a cresistIess’ technique to prepare patterned mesoporous silica. We also demo...

Ionic liquid crystals (ILCs) allow the combination of the high ionic conductivity of ionic liquids (ILs) with the supramolecular organization of liquid crystals (LCs). ILCs salts were obtained by the assembly of long-chained diketonylpyridinium cations of the type [HOOR(n)pyH]⁺ and BF₄-, ReO₄-, NO₃-, CF₃SO₃-, CuCl₄2- counter-ions. We have studied the thermal behavior of five series of compounds...

To probe the influence of electrostatic interactions on the mesomorphic self-assembly and phase behaviour of hybrid liquid crystals a series of crown ether/tyrosine hybrid systems was prepared by Steglich esterification of alkyl N-(tert-butoxycarbonyl)-l-tyrosinates with 4-carboxybenzo[15]crown-5 and 4-carboxybenzo[18]crown-6. The obtained derivatives allowed further manipulations at the NH fun...