Facilities — Chemistry laboratory

The CMMPE chemistry laboratory is a synthetic organic laboratory with all the necessary modern facilities. The main objectives are:

1. Synthesising new compounds having specific liquid crystalline properties and to characterise them.

2. Examining relationshsips between molecular structure and liquid crystalline physical/electrical properties.

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.

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.

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