R. Sharma¹, S. Dutt^2,* and S. Singh^3,*,

¹Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee-247667, India

²Department of Chemistry, Government Postgraduate College Una, Una-174303 India

³Department of Applied Chemistry-ASET, Amity University, Gwalior-474005, India

*Corresponding authors: sunilduttiitmandi@gmail.com; shivendrasngh0@gmail.com

Using swollen liquid crystals (SLCs) as a soft template, different polyindole nanostructures having different morphology have been synthesized successfully at different temperatures. The SLCs containing indole ring was formed by a quaternary system containing cetyltrimethyl-ammonium bromide (CTAB) or sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as a surfactant, brine, indole:cyclohexane mixture as oil phase and 1-pentanol as co-surfactant. The indole containing mesophases were polymerized using ammonium persulfate as an oxidant and further nanocomposites were extracted from the mesophases. Finally, the extracted and processed samples were characterized using different spectroscopic techniques. The electrochemical properties of polyindole nanostructures were also investigated using cyclic voltammetry.

Polyindole, Liquid crystals, Polymers, Nano-structures, Mesophase.