Liquid crystalline epoxides with long lateral substituents: Synthesis and curing

A series of liquid crystalline epoxides with long lateral substituent from 4 to 12 carbon atoms was synthesized and characterized by 1H NMR, FTIR spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarized light optical microscopy (POM). The curing products of the LCE with DDM, was analyzed by POM and WAXS. The cure kinetics of epoxides and aromatic amine was investigated. The curing activation energy about 43.3–53.2 kJ mol−1 was determined and compared for all the LC epoxides through Ozawa method. The change of activation energy suggests that the reaction active depends upon the lateral substituents, because the lateral substituents parallel to the rod-like core and can act as bound solvent.