Overview
The CMMPE chemistry laboratory is a synthetic organic laboratory with all the necessary modern facilities. The main objectives are:
-
Synthesising new compounds having specific liquid crystalline properties and to characterise them.
-
Examining relationshsips between molecular structure and liquid crystalline physical/electrical properties.
Equipment
The range of equipment available in the laboratory includes:
- Flash Chromatograph
- Commercial microwave (Sharpe 1000)
- Differential Scanning Calorimeter (Perkin-Elmer DSC 7)
- UV-Visible Spectrophotometer
- Raman spectrophotometer
- Polarising Microscopes (Leitz Laborlux and Olympus)
- X-ray crystallography
This lab is also well equipped with specific glassware like high vacuum Schlenk line, Dean & Starks apparatus, micro distillation units and soxhelt, etc. The lab also has its own large dedicated chemical store, containing a wide range of (more than 500) precursor materials, for specific targeted molecular synthesis.
Results
A large number of new compounds have already been synthesised and characterised. These include compounds exhibiting nematic, cholesteric, smectic, ferroelectric and blue phases; these materials are mostly driven from organosiloxane, bimesogin cores and non-conventional structures exhibiting mesophases which is the speciality of this group.
