Conformational problem of alkanes in liquid crystals by NMR spectroscopy: a mini-review.

Recent discoveries of the role of alkane flexibility in determining liquid-crystal behaviour are surveyed. With the impetus for understanding the alkane conformational problem established, recent model dependent (1)H NMR work on the topic will be reviewed where progress is made but the need to circumvent models eventually becomes evident. A closer look at the rigid basic units of alkanes will provide the way forward where it is shown that the orientational ordering and anisotropic potentials of these molecules dissolved in liquid crystals scale with each other. Once this relationship is established, a series of works using anisotropic and isotropic (1)H NMR spectroscopy to study alkane conformational statistics will be covered, wherein the influence of the gas, isotropic condensed and anisotropic condensed phases will be described.