Combinatorial organic materials research (COMR):: design, synthesis and screening of a 225-membered materials library of liquid crystalline fluorinated p-quaterphenyls

The rapid solution phase synthesis of novel liquid crystalline materials is demonstrated by utilising combinatorial and parallel methods for the preparation of a library of 225 differently fluorinated 4,4"-dipropyl-p-quaterphenyls. Chemical diversity was introduced into the growing oligomers via a convergent synthetic sequence of iodinations and Suzuki cross-couplings by using various fluorinated phenyl building blocks. A highly efficient rapid parallel purification method was developed that provided HPLC-pure library members in amounts sufficient for the characterization of bulk properties.