Ying Liu,Sheng Gao,Xinjian Gong,Qingbin Xue,Zaijun Lu
To further increase the intrinsic thermal conductivity (TC) of polybenzoxazine, a series of benzoxazine-epoxy thermosets (s-PBEI) were obtained through the sequential curing of a smectic phase epoxy monomer (s-EP) and a bifunctional benzoxazine monomer (BZ) in the presence of imidazole. The results show that s-PBEI exhibits a smectic mesophase. The formation mechanism of the smectic phase is reaction-induced phase separation caused by the preferential curing of s-EP. Owing to the increment of the liquid crystalline structure content, the TC of s-PBEI increases with increasing s-EP content. The TC of s-PBEI55 containing equal weight of BZ and s-EP reaches 0.30 W m−1 K−1, which is higher than that of n-PBEI55, a benzoxazine-epoxy thermoset with nematic phase structures. Additionally, the TC, glass transition temperature, and 10% weight loss temperature of s-PBEI64 containing 60 wt% BZ and 40 wt% s-EP are 0.28 W m−1 K−1, 216°C, and 334°C, respectively, indicating its potential applications in electronic packaging, LED lighting, and other fields requiring a high TC resin matrix.
Peng Zhu,Limin Wu,Wei Liu,Baozong Li,Yi Li,Yonggang Yang
A series of pyridinium-based chiral ionic liquid crystals were designed and synthesized. All of them exhibit enantiotropic smectic phases. The methylation on the pyridine ring not only decreases the melting point and clearing point, but also drives structural transitions from bilayer molecular packing structures to interdigitated monolayer ones at the smectic A and C phases. Due to entropy increase, the clearing point of the liquid crystal derived from 2-methylpyridine is higher than that derived from 3-methylpyridine, and then that derived from 4-methylpyridine.
Block copolymer (BCP) films with perpendicularly aligned cylindrical domains of high aspect ratio have important applications in diverse fields. However, an aspect ratio of the cylinders as high as 200 has rarely been reported so far. Here we demonstrate an efficient route to the formation of normally aligned P4VP cylinders with high aspect ratio surrounded by a matrix of azobenzene-containing block (PMA(Az)) via hierarchical self-assembly. A crisscross structure, consisting of parallelly aligned liquid crystalline (LC) layers and normally aligned self-assembly domains, is expected to assist the formation of well-defined nanostructures. The LC layers in the cylindrical films self-assemble to form smectic phase after solvent annealing, as confirmed by WAXD and UV-vis spectra. We found that the aspect ratio of the vertical P4VP cylinders is up to 200 and the film thickness reaches 6 μm. P4VP is a functional polymer, making this P4VP-b-PMA(Az) film more suitable for advanced filters, multi-nanochannels, nanolithography, and high-density storage media, etc.