Crystallinity of fully aromatic thermotropic polyesters of 3,3'-bis(phenyl)-4,4'-biphenol and 1,1'-binaphthyl-4,4'-diol

The degree of crystallinity of as-made fully aromatic, thermotropic polyesters was determined for two different series of polymers, each of which contained a symmetric monomer having either pendant phenyl groups or fused aromatic rings by the WAXD technique. All of the homopolymers had a high degree of crystallinity in spite of bulky substituents attached to the mesogenic moiety. Surprisingly, the homopolymer of 2,6-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid with each of the monomers had a higher degree of crystallinity and T_m than those of the homopolymer of terephthalic acid with each of the respective monomers. As expected, on copolymerization with 30 mol % of either 4-hydroxybenzoic acid or 6-hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid, all of the resulting copolymers had a much lower degree of crystallinity and T_m/T_f values compared to those of the respective homopolymers in each series. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.