Retracted article: Design, synthesis, and study of benzobis- and bibenz(imidazolium)-based ionic liquid crystals

Abstract

The Royal Society of Chemistry hereby wholly retracts this Journal of Materials Chemistry article with the agreement of Christopher W. Bielawski and Kelly M. Wiggins (other co-authors could not be reached) due to data fabrication as detailed below. This retraction supersedes the information provided in the Expression of Concern related to this article. The Royal Society of Chemistry has been contacted by the corresponding author of this article and the Research Integrity Officer at The University of Texas at Austin regarding concerns of scientific misconduct affecting this article. The Research Integrity Officer has informed us that an investigation to ascertain the validity of the work reported has found that scientific misconduct by one of the articles co-authors has taken place as follows: the thermal plots in this article were falsified from original data – the enumerated figures do not accurately reflect the raw data. Specifically, the thermal data in Figure 2 was falsified. The thermal data in Supplementary Figures S1-S3 was also falsified. The original data in Figure 2 and Supplementary Figures S1-S3 was manipulated to make the peaks appear larger or smaller than they originally were. The signing authors would like to apologise for this and any consequent inconvenience to authors and readers. Signed: Christopher W. Bielawski and Kelly M. Wiggins, March 2015