Liquid crystalline polymers LCPs aromatic copolyesters

The unique molecular packing of rod-like chains in liquid crystalline polymers (LCP) closely resembles the extended chain structure of highly oriented flexible chain polymers, suggesting that these materials are good candidates for barrier applications. Thermotropic LCP s, first developed in the early 1970 s, have been the object of much interest because of their excellent mechanical properties and ease of product fabrication. Preliminary observations have shown that a commercially available wholly aromatic thermotropic copolyester has gas permeability coefficients that are lower than those of polyacrylonitrile (4.). These results raise some fundamental questions as to the nature of the mechanism for transport of small molecules through a matrix of ordered rigid rod-like chains. 

The commercial polymers used in the study are characterized in Table 1. The polypropylenes PP1-PP5 were homopolymers exhibiting different melt viscosities (see Fig. 1) supplied by Neste Chemicals. Liquid-crystalline polymer 1 (LCPl) (Vectra A950 by Hoechst Celanese) is a totally aromatic polyester-type thermotropic main-chain LCP copolymer based on p-hydroxybenzoic acid (HBA) and 6-hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid (HNA). Liquid-crystalline polymer 2 (LCP2) (Rodrun LC-3000 by Unitika Ltd) is a more flexible thermotropic main-chain LCP copolyester consisting of 60%... 

Materials. The amorphous matrix polymer was polyetherimide (Ultem 1000) sold by the General Electric Company. The semicrystalline matrices were PEEK and a high molecular weight polyphenylenesulfide (PPS) provided by ICI and Phillips Petroleum Co. (Barthesville, OK.), respectively. The reinforcing phase was one of several LCPs a liquid crystalline aromatic copolyester consisting of 73 %... 

Early studies of the thermal degradation of so-called polyarylates were covered by Neiman [100] and Ehlers and co-workers [101]. Since then, several highly aromatic and specifically liquid crystalline (mesogenic) polyesters have been examined in terms of their anaerobic thermal degradation characteristics. These inclnde homopolymers of hydroxybenzoic acids [102-105] copolymers of hydroxybenzoic acid with hydroxynaphthoic acid [105-108] polymers which are essentially copolymers of hydroxybenzoic acid and alkyene terephthalates [107-118] copolymers of hydroxybenzoic acid with other aromatic polyesters [119-122] phenolic and bisphenolic terephthalates [123-127] poly(oxynaphthoate)s [128] and liquid crystal polyesters (LCP) containing unsaturated acids as part of a copolyester chain [129-131]. 

---