Naphthalene-1,5-diamine (3.14 g, 19.8 mmol), 1-bromooctane (25.25 g, 0.130 mol), potassium carbonate (11.79 g, 85.3 mmol), and potassium iodide (0.05 g, 0.30 mmol) was stirred in dry butanol (150 ml) and heated to 110° C. for 36 h. The reaction was quenched with water and extracted with ether three times. The combined organic phase was washed three times with water and evaporated to give black oil which was distilled under reduced pressure at 90° C. to yield a black tar. This was purified with flash chromatography using hexane as mobile phase to obtain colourless oil which crystallised to yield N1,N1,N5,N5-tetraoctylnaphthalene-1,5-diamine (2.3 g, 3.79 mmol) as white crystals. 1H-NMR (CDCl3, δ): 0.85 (t, 12H), 1.0-1.4 (m, 40H), 1.4-1.6 (m, 8H), 3.08 (t, 8H), 7.1 (d, 2H), 7.35 (t, 2H), 8.01 (d, 2H) MS MALDI-TOF (m/z): 606.574
