Selective Absorption of Hydrophobic Cations in Nanostructured Porous Materials from Crosslinked Hydrogen-Bonded Columnar Liquid Crystals

Abstract

A nanostructured porous material is obtained by crosslinking of a self-assembled system consisting of columnar liquid crystals with polyamines and removal of the template. For this purpose, a columnar liquid crystal with liquid crystalline properties at room temperature is synthesized and fully characterized. The orthogonal self-assembly of the columnar liquid crystal with polyamines (i.e., PPI dendrimers) results in the formation of nanosegregated structures. When crosslinked by photopolymerization a nanostructured crosslinked material is obtained. Partial removal of the polyamine template leads to a nanostructured porous material, which is characterized and the absorbent properties are investigated. The polarity of the porous material is probed and the porous material is used for the selective absorption of cationic dye molecules.