Mesomorphic behaviour of cerium(III) alkanoates

In this paper, we describe the synthesis, characterisation and thermal behaviour of cerium(III) alkanoates. The compounds have the stoichiometry [Ce(CxH2x+1COO)3], where x=5–17, and were characterised by elemental analysis and infrared spectroscopy. The thermal behaviour was investigated by hot-stage polarised optical microscopy, by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and by high-temperature X-ray diffraction (XRD). A highly viscous mesophase M and a smectic A phase were observed for the shorter compounds (x=5–9), whereas only a smectic A phase was observed for the longer compounds of these kind of metallomesogens. The chain length has a pronounced effect on the transition temperatures.