Effective length of the alkyl chain and thermal behaviors of Langmuir–Blodgett films of octadecylammonium laurate, octadecylammonium octadecanoate and octadecylammonium tetracosanoate

Thermal behaviors of 11-layer Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) films of the double long-chain compounds of octadecylammonium laurate (ODALA), octadecylammonium octadecanoate (ODASA) and octadecylammonium tetracosanoate (ODATA) have been investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The temperature-dependent infrared spectra show that thermal stability of the three kinds of LB films depends upon the length of the hydrocarbon chain. The LB film of ODALA undergoes an order–disorder transition in the temperature range of 50–65 °C. In contrast, the ODATA LB film has the phase transition temperature range of 80–90 °C. Of particular interest is that both ODASA and ODATA LB films have nearly the same phase transition temperature range of 80–90 °C, indicating that the replacement between tetracosanoic acid and stearic acid has little effect on the thermal stability of the two compounds. The above observations suggest that the effective length of the alkyl chains, which is determined by the component with a shorter chain in the double long-chain compounds, has a dominant influence on the thermal stability. It is very likely that the whole chain of the shorter chain component such as octadecylamine in ODATA has contribution to the thermal stability while only the effective length of the longer alkyl chain component gives a significant effect.