Effect of molecular weight on two smectic polyesters

The liquid crystalline transitions of two kinds of smectic polyesters with different molecular weights were investigated by DSC, polarized microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The molecular weight affects the transitions significantly for these two kinds of polyesters. With a high enough molecular weight, both poly (pentamethylenep,p-bibenzoate) and poly(hexamethylenep,p-bibenzoate) exhibit an enantiotropic smectic phase, but the two endothermic transition peaks of the DSC heating curve seem to overlap. The polyesters tend to exhibit a monotropic smectic phase as the molecular weight decreases. From the DSC cooling curve, the isotropic-smectic transition can be seen more clearly. As the molecular weight decreases, the smectic order decrease significantly. The molecular weight affects the transitions in a different way for these two different kinds of polyesters.