Rigid-chain polyesters grafted with flexible-chain vinyl polymers

The concept of “molecular reinforcement” has been advanced, in the last decade, as an alternative to conventional fibre reinforcement of thermoplastics: In blends with normal (flexible-chain) thermoplastics, rigid chains of main-chain LC polymers (PLC) can act as strengthening fibres on the molecular scale. However, the rigid PLC chains must be well dispersed which is improbable since PLC and normal polymers are usually incompatible. A related concept is “micellar reinforcement”: Graft copolymers made of a rigid-chain PLC backbone and flexible-chain grafts can form a microphase morphology of cylinderic micelles where the PLC chains act as reinforcing fibres on a micellar scale. Such rigid-flexible graft copolymers are discussed in this study. They were pepared from a polyester of terephthaloyl, dihexoxyterephthaloyl and phenylhydroquinone moieties with special comonomer units carrying a double bond onto which styrene was grafted via radical copolymerisation. Grafting occurred with high efficiency, leading to products with the desired morphology of cyclindric micelles.