A New Chemo‐Enzymatic Route to Side‐Chain Liquid‐Crystalline Polymers: The Synthesis and Polymerization of 6‐(4‐Methoxybiphenyl‐4′‐oxy)hexyl Vinyl Hexanedioate

A novel synthetic method combining chemo and enzymatic synthesis strategies was employed to prepare a vinyl acetate type monomer, 6‐(4‐methoxybiphenyl‐4′‐oxy)hexyl vinyl hexanedioate (VA‐LC). Homo‐ and copolymers of VA‐LC with maleic anhydride (MAn) were prepared by conventional free radical polymerization using 2,2′‐azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) and 1,1′‐azobis (cyclohexane carbonitrile) (AHCN) as an initiator at 95 and 60 °C, respectively. The thermal properties of the generated polymeric material were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and the optical texture was inspected by polarizing optical microscopy (POM). While the monomer VA‐LC does not exhibit liquid‐crystalline properties, poly(VA‐LC), and the alternating copolymer of VA‐LC with maleic anhydride both displayed such properties.