On the phase equilibria of nematic mixtures

✍ Scribed by Farida Benmouna; Ulrich Maschke; Xavier Coqueret; Mustapha Benmouna

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 141 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-6266
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0488(20000201)38:3<478::aid-polb13>3.0.co;2-q

✦ Synopsis

The theory of Brochard et al. for mixtures of nematogens is applied to the case of crosslinked polymers with side chain liquid crystals and low-molecular-weight liquid crystals. Phase equilibria of those mixtures are analyzed by allowing the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter for isotropic mixture and the rubber elasticity parameters of the elastic network to be functions of the polymer volume fraction. A wide range of crosslinking density is covered showing a strong influence on the phase behavior of such compounds. The clearing temperature of nematic-isotropic transition of each nematogen is different and the cross-nematic interaction parameter is a geometric average of the parameters for pure nematogens.