doi:10.1039/d5ta09556eengAuria-Soro, CarlotaCruz-Navarro, NuriaFolcia, César L.Sobrados, IsabelHaddad, Amin SharifiMartínez-Felipe, AlfonsoRos, M. BlancaNew nanostructured, ion-conductive, bent-core liquid crystals containing lithium and sodium salts as soft electrolyte candidatesART-2026-148456Two new tetraethylene glycol (TEG)-containing bent-core molecules are revealed as suitable, versatile supramolecular building blocks to form liquid crystalline phases and organogels in novel structured soft electrolytes. New amphiphilic bent-core molecules [TEG-Bx-10-14], composed of a short polar TEG-segment capping and well-defined bent-core, mesogenic-like structures, and a set of their [1/1] complexes with TfO− and Tf2N−/lithium and sodium salts [MA-TEG-Bx-10-14], are investigated for the first time. FT-IR, 13C CP-MAS-NMR and 1H MAS-NMR studies at variable temperatures indicate the selective complexation of cations in the TEG regions. Although new bent-core molecular designs [TEG-10-Bx-14] do not exhibit liquid crystal order, most of their complexes [MA-TEG-10-Bx-14] stabilize an attractive number of bent-core lamellar mesophases (SmCP, HNF-like, USmCP and Colob). Diffusion coefficients (D) of lithium, favoured by the liquid crystal phase transition, are estimated by solid state NMR spectroscopy. The direct current values of σdc ∼ 10−4 S cm−1 in the mid-high frequency range were found using dielectric spectroscopy, highlighting the potential of bent-core building blocks as organic and nanostructured soft electrolytes containing both lithium and sodium cations, whose ionic conductivities can be optimised through composition tuning and annealing.2026http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/16995510.1039/d5ta09556ehttp://zaguan.unizar.es/record/169955oai:zaguan.unizar.es:169955info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/E47-23Rinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIN/PID2021-122882NB-I00info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCIN/PID2024-156641NB-I00info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/BES-2016-078753Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2026), [16 pp.]by-nchttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.esinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess