Application of weakly oriented non-ionic liquid crystal solvents to NMR studies of poly-ethylene oxide (PEO)

We report in this article the application of a series of weakly ordered liquid crystal solvents for liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The solvents are a n-alkyl-poly(ethylene glycol)/n-alkyl alcohol non-ionic liquid crystal system, first proposed by Ruckert and Otting (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, 122, 7793). The merits of these solvents are further demonstrated by using them with a homogeneous polymer PEO which is. one of the most studied polymer electrolyte materials, thus offering an answer to the question of whether the weak anisotropy introduced by liquid crystal solvents has any connection with the large-scale (greater than or equal to one nanometer) heterogeneity (tertiary or higher orders of structure) of the system under study.