The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

Liquid crystalline epoxy resins (LCEs) are attractive materials that exhibit outstanding mechanical properties, high thermal stability, and enhanced thermal conductivity arising from strong intermolecular interactions. Owing to their molecular architecture, LCEs can develop diverse orientation, and the resulting orientation structures and degrees of alignment give rise to a wide range of tunable properties and functionalities. In this study, we report a novel LCE system via anionic ring-opening polymerization. The liquid crystalline (LC) monomers were designed to incorporate aliphatic spacers, enabling the formation of well-ordered LC orientations during the curing process. The effects of spacer chain length on the molecular orientation and resulting properties of the LCEs were systematically investigated. Moreover, the enhanced intermolecular interactions arising from molecular alignment improved phonon transport pathway, leading to a significant increase in thermal conductivity.