Curing of a rigid rod epoxy resin with an aliphatic diacid: an example of a lightly crosslinked liquid crystalline thermoset

✍ Scribed by Marta Giamberini; Eugenio Amendola; Cosimo Carfagna

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 960 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1022-1336
• DOI: 10.1002/marc.1995.030160201

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

By reacting a rigid rod epoxy terminated molecule (p‐bis(2,3‐epoxypropoxy)‐α‐methylstilbene) with an aliphatic carboxylic acid (decanedioic acid), a lightly crosslinked liquid crystalline network is obtained. This network exhibits a smectic‐like phase. While the mesophasic structure resulted “frozen” by the crosslinks in the case of higly crosslinked liquid crystalline epoxy resins, in this case a reversible transition from the liquid crystalline to the isotropic phase is observed. Moreover, while curing the same rigid rod epoxy molecule with amines resulted in a thermoset with a nematic structure, in this case a more ordered mesophase can be obtained. Preliminary results show that it is possible to orient macroscopically the mesogenic chains by stretching thin films above the glass transition temperature (T~g~) and then quickly cooling down to the glassy state. This makes this material very attractive in the field of optical applications.