| Mar 01, 2022 |
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(Nanowerk News) Liquid crystals could soon be produced more efficiently and in a more environmentally friendly way. A new process has been developed by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Germany, Bangalore University in India and Cairo University in Egypt.
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Compared to conventional methods, it is faster, more energy-efficient and promises a high yield as the team reports in the Journal of Molecular Liquids (“Novel green synthetic approach for liquid crystalline materials using multi-component reactions”).
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Liquid crystals are used in most smartphone, tablet and computer displays.
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The production of liquid crystals is a complex process with many intermediate steps. “Often it requires various solvents and expensive catalysts,” says Dr Mohamed Alaasar, a chemist at MLU. The team from Germany, India and Egypt was looking for a way to simplify the process and make it more environmentally friendly.
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The idea: instead of the chemical reactions taking place one after the other, certain steps could be combined in a so-called multicomponent reaction in which several substances react directly with one another.
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The team developed an approach for producing liquid crystals which does not require environmentally harmful solvents and relies on cheaper catalysts.
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“We were able to achieve a yield of about 90 per cent. This means that most of the chemicals are used in the process and relatively few residues are produced,” explains Alaasar.
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This saves energy and ultimately also money. At room temperature the newly created liquid crystals are in a nematic phase – a special arrangement of molecules used in most liquid crystal displays or LCDs.
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So far, the researchers have only tested their new process in the laboratory. However, Alaasar is confident that it could also be implemented on an industrial scale.
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“However, manufacturers would have to rebuild parts of their manufacturing. This has not happened in the past with other promising materials,” says the scientist.
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However, consumers started valuing sustainability and more environmentally friendly products of the last years. That could be an additional argument in favour for the new approach.
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