Anionic Copolymerization Reaction Kinetics Of Liquid Crystalline Polyethers

We have designed and synthesized three different liquid crystal monomers, which have been used in anionic ring-opening polymerization.One homopolymer and three copolymers with different components have been synthesized. The process of anionic copolymerization was monitored by in situ NMR experiment. Thereby, we put forward a new fitting method to study the copolymerization kinetics and calculate the reactivity ratios by computer programming based on the copolymerization kinetic equations. We further investigated the thermodynamic properties and liquid crystal structure of the polymers by using DSC and wide angle X-ray diffraction(WAXD) experiments. The copolymerization experiments showed that we can change the micro-structure of liquid crystal copolymers to a great extent through adjusting the activities of the co-monomers, therefore, to control the monomer sequence and distribution in the polymer chain, and eventually to change the properties of this type of polymeric materials.