Energetic calculations of the chain conformation of isotactic polymers of olefins in the crystalline state

Energetic calculations have been carried out on a correlated series of isotactic aliphatic polymers (polypropylene (PP), poly-α-butene (PB), poly-3-methylbutene (P3MB), poly-(S)-3-methylpentene-1 (P(S)3MP) and isotactic polystyrene (PS). The possible variation of the CCC bond angles and of all the internal rotation angles (no group of atoms being taken as a unit) was considered.The possibility to predict the experimental helical parameters without any previous assumption is discussed. The differences in the shape of the minima for polymers with aliphatic and aromatic branched chains have been critically evaluated.For the P(S)3MP the results have shown how the asymmetric configuration of the side group influences the chain conformation of the polymer.