Thomas A. Chamberlin

Chain stiffness of liquid crystalline polyesters. 2. Radius of gyration and intrinsic viscosity

Abstract Continuing from the previous paper on novel liquid crystalline polymers containing the dihydroxy-α-methylstilbene (DHαMS) fragment, several conclusions were reached for random terpolymers of DHαMS terephthalate, DHαMS isophthalate and DHαMS 2,6-naphthoate; in mole fractions of 0.65, 0.10 and 0.25, respectively; by atomistic simulations and experimental work on effects of weight-average molecular weight ( M w ) on the radius of gyration ( R g ) and intrinsic viscosity [η]: I. The polydispersities of the samples are around 2.16, a typical value for condensation polymers. 2. The observed R gw , (weight-average R g ) and [η]values are both roughly proportional to M w 0.7 . 3. The calculated R g values are also ∼ M w 0.7 and comparable to the observed R gw , values. 4. The calculated [η]∼ M w 0.85 (and thus have a very similar exponent for the M w dependence), but are larger than the observed values of [η] by roughly a factor of 6 over the entire range of M w .