Liquid crystalline catalysis by smectic B solvents: structure and thermodynamical properties of the reactant solution

ASE quaternization reaction was used as a reactivity probe within smectic B solvents. The aim of the present study is to point out the determinant role that differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and x-ray scattering techniques may play within this kind of investigation. DSC is proving to be particularly valuable to display the multisite distribution of a solute molecule within the smectic B solution. The reactant partition between different sites, previously suggested also on the basis of linear dicroism spectra, is particularly important because it provides a unifying framework able to account for all the reactivity and structural experimental data previously published by us.