Design, Synthesis And Characterization Of Fluorinated Supramolecular Liquid Crystalline Polymers

Fluorinated compounds including fluoropolymers have attracted wide interest in the fundamental material sciences and applied technologies for past fifty years, since the fluorinated surface is effective on the tribological behavior due to the low energy surface and negative surface potentials besides their excellent thermal stability and chemical resistance. Using intermolecular hydrogen bonding to make self-assembled liquid crystals is a well-established strategy. There is a growing interest in fluorinated supramolecular liquid crystalline because of their potential utilities in holographic storage and other optical and photonic applications.In this paper, two different kinds and five series of functional liquid crystalline polymers were synthesized on the basis of seven designed and synthesized monomers. One of kinds is main-chain polymers containing fluorine group. The other is side-chain polymers by grafting to linear polymethylhydrogensiloxanes. By p-fluoroaniline being the H-bond acceptors, supramolecular liquid crystallines polymers were designed and synthesized. The five series of supramolecular liquid crystalline polymers demonstrated different chemical structures and different characters.The structures and properties of the obtained liquid crystalline polymers and supramolecular liquid crystalline polymers were investigated by FT-IR spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry(DSC), polarizing optical microscopy(POM), specific rotation analysis(SRA), 1H nuclear magnetic resonance(1H-NMR) and X-ray analysis(XRD).Polymers P1 series were nematic liquid crystals. Polymers P2, P3, P4 and P5 series were cholesteric liquid crystals. Supramolecular polymers C1 series were nematic liquid crystals. Supramolecular polymers C3 series were smectic liquid crystals. Supramolecular polymers C2, C4 and C5 series were cholesteric liquid crystals. Physical and chemical properties of the polymers and supramolecular polymers have been changed due to fluorinated and supramoleculated reactions and interactions.