Synthesis of lyotropic side chain polymer liquid crystals

3 SYNTHESIS OF LYOTROPIC SIDE CHAIN POLYMER LIQUID CRYSTALS 

As we have already seen in Section 5.2, monomeric amphiphilic molecules contain two distinctive regions. Incorporation of such molecules into side-chain polymers may in principle be brought about by polymerization at the hydrophobic or hydrophilic ends, thereby giving rise to the structures shown in Fig. 5.12. In the type A polymers the pendant side chains extend from a hydrophobic backbone, whereas type B polymers are formed by amphiphiles with polymerizable hydrophilic groups. The micellar aggregates of these two different types may be expected to be quite different, as has been suggested by pioneers in the field. More 

Returning to the structures in Fig. 5.10, polymerization may be carried out most effectively by one of two methods. Both these approaches rely on the polymerization of terminal vinyl groups at the end of the 

Polymerization by any of the above processes inherently yields a polymer having a fairly inflexible poly (meth)acrylate backbone. As we 

Only one example of the type B polymers shown in Fig. 5.12 has appeared in the literature. This material, synthesized by Jahns and Finkelmann, was produced using radical polymerization of an am-phiphile containing a vinyl moiety at the terminal end of the hydrophilic 

---