Easy synthesis of liquid crystalline perylene derivatives

Mesophase forming chromophores are an important challenge of material science. This article describes the synthesis of new perylene mesogenes 10. The materials were obtained by twofold Diels-Alder reactions of our recently published 1:1 isomeric mixture of 3,9- and 3,10-dialkylperylenes with N-heptadecyltriazoline-3,5-diones. In contrast to the analogous derivatives 1 published earlier by our group (see reference 3), the new compounds 10 are prepared by a more efficient synthetic route and on a larger scale. Furthermore the characteristics of the liquid crystalline behavior of both materials;are compared.