Inter Hydrogen Bonded Complexes of Hexadecylaniline and Alkoxy Benzoic Acids : A Study of Crystallization Kinetics

A systematic crystallization kinetic study of two smectogens of homologous series of the inter molecular hydrogen bonded between undecyl, dodecyl benzoic acids and hexadecylaniline complexes viz., 16A+11BA and 16A+12BA respectively has been carried out by thermal microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dielectric studies. FTIR studies indicate the formation of hydrogen bond in these complexes. The crystallization kinetics was studied by two techniques viz., the traditional thermal analysis (DSC) and electrical studies in which capacitance and dielectric loss variation with temperature were recorded and analyzed. The DSC thermograms were run from crystallization temperature to the isotropic melt for different time intervals. The liquid crystalline behaviour together with the rate of crystallization of smectic ordering in newly synthesized inter hydrogen bonded complexes were discussed in relation to the kinetophase (which occurs prior to the crystallization). The molecular mechanism and dimensionality in the crystal growth were computed from the Avrami equation. The characteristic crystallization time (t*) at each crystallization temperature was deduced from the individual plots of log t and Delta H. Further, it was observed that the data obtained from DSC and dielectric studies were in good agreement with one another. For the first time in the history of crystallization studies, crystallization kinetics data is experimentally elicited from a novel dielectric technique.