Crystalline polymers frustrated structures

While no direct evidence of liquid crystallinity in PET-BB copolymers has been reported, the high-BB-content copolymers have been shown to possess morphologies similar to those of liquid crystalline polyesters [40], and show major changes in both melt relaxation times and fiber tensile moduli, suggestive of structural organization in a frustrated liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) (Table 6.3 and Figure 6.4) [41, 42],... 

Finally, we have attempted to evaluate the possible impact of an intermediate liquid crystalline phase and the possibility of transfer of helical hand information from the melt to the crystal throughout this process. Assuming that the melt is structured, the melt of chiral but racemic polyolefins would be made of stretches of helical stems that are equally partitioned between left- and right-handed helices. Formation of antichiral structures (such as in a iPP) could be interpreted as indicating a possible transfer of information (but the problem of the sequence of helical hands would still remain). This analysis is, however, ruined by the observation that many of these polymers also form chiral structures (frustrated p phase of iPP, Form III of iPBul). For the achiral poly(5-methyl-pentene-l), the chiral, frustrated phase is actually the more stable one, and can be obtained by melting and recrystallization of a less stable antichiral phase. 

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