热致变色

Fibers and Polymers 2007, Vol.8, No.2, 234-236

234

Effect of Alkyl Chain Length on Thermochromism of

Novel Nitro Compounds

Sang Cheol Lee *, Y oung Gyu Jeong, Suk Hyun Jang, and Won Ho Jo 1

School of Advanced Materials and Systems Engineering, Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Kumi 730-701, Korea

1

Hyperstructured Organic Materials Research Center and School of Materials Science and Engineering,

Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea

(Received November 21, 2006; Revised February 16, 2007; Accepted March 19, 2007)

Abstract: A series of novel nitro compounds containing different alkyl chain length (x=2~5), 1,5-bis(hydroxyalkylamino)-2,4-dinitrobenzene (BDBx), are synthesized and their thermochromic behavior is investigated by using differential scanning calorimetry and optical microscopy. All the BDBx crystals synthesized show yellow color at room temperature. BDBx (x=2~4) samples display orange color even in the solid when heated above respective thermochromic transition temperature,while the yellow color of BDB5 changes to orange with melting. The orange color of BDBx crystals returns to yellow when cooled down to room temperature, indicating that the thermochromic behavior of BDBx is reversible. The thermochromic transition temperatures of BDBx crystals are found to be decreased with increasing the alkyl chain length, exhibiting even-odd fluctuation.

Keywords: Thermochromism, Thermochromic transition temperature, Even-odd fluctuation

The reversible or irreversible color change of organic compounds under the stimulus of heat is referred to as thermochromism [1,2]. The thermochromic organic compounds have received special attention in various applications such as smart dyes, temperature-indicating devices, temperature sensitive light filters, optical switching, imaging systems, etc [1,3,4].Among thermochromic organic compounds, spiroheterocyclic compounds [5-7], Schiff base [8-11], and overcrowded ethyl-enes [12,13] have been extensively investigated. As a result,it was revealed that their thermochromism occurs via an equilibrium process between two isomeric molecular species.For instance, the thermochromic behavior of spiroheterocyclic compounds such as spiropyrans and spirooxazines has been identified to be associated with a thermally sensitive equilibrium between the spiroheterocyclic form and the quasi-planar open merocyanine-like structure formed by ring opening via the C-O bond breaking [1,2].

We have recently introduced a novel thermochromic nitro compound, 1,5-bis(hydroxyethylamino)-2,4-dinitrobenzene (BDB2), and investigated its thermochromic mechanism in the solid state [14]. The yellow color of BDB2 at room tem-perature changed to orange in the solid state when heated.The yellow color is recovered when cooled again. From the results of X-ray diffraction, thermal data, visible and infrared spectra, it was suggested that the reversible thermochromic behavior of BDB2 stems from the crystal-to-crystal transition accompanying the configurational transformation between nitro-form and acid-form via the intramolecular hydrogen transfer. In this communication, we report the synthesis and thermochromism of 1,5-bis(hydroxyalkylamino)-2,4-dinitro-benzene (BDBx, where x means the number of methylene group) with a variety of alkyl chain lengths (x=2~5), whose

chemical structure is shown in Figure 1. The influence of alkyl chain length on thermochromic behavior of BDBx crystals is investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry and optical microscopy.

A series of BDBx with different alkyl chain length (x=2~5) were synthesized via two steps in the laboratory. In the first step, m -dichlorobenzene (50g, 0.34 mol) was reacted with KNO 3 (70g, 0.693 mol) in a concentrated H 2SO 4 solution (250m l ) at 130o C for 1 hr. The reaction product of 2,6-dichloro-3,5-dinitrobenzene was filtrated, dissolved in a boiling 95% ethanol (1000m l ), and recrystallized at 0o C for 24 hrs. In the second step, 2-amino-1-ethanol (23g), 3-amino-1-protanol (28.3g), 4-amino-1-butanol (33.5g), and 5-amino-1-pentanol (34.7g) were dissolved in ethanol (50m l ),respectively, and then each solution was dropwisely added into 2,6-dichloro-3,5-dinitrobenzene (20g, 0.084mol) in ethanol solution (250m l ). Each mixed solution was stirred for 4 hrs to complete the reaction between 2,6-dichloro-3,5-dinitrobenzene and aminoalcohol. The crude products of BDBx with different alkyl chain length were filtrated and purified by recrystalli-zation in ethanol solution. Sample codes for BDBx (x=2~5)crystals prepared in this study are denoted as BDB2, BDB3,BDB4 and BDB5, respectively, depending on the alkyl chain length. Here, it should be mentioned that each BDBx consists of only one crystal structure, which is confirmed by X-ray diffraction method. Previously, we found that BDB2 exists

*Corresponding author: leesc@kumoh.ac.kr

Figure 1. Chemical structure of 1,5-bis(hydroxyalkylamino)-2,4-dinitrobenzene (BDBx).