LIQUID CRYSTALLINE POLYETHERS VIA CHOLESTEROL-INITIATED OXYANIONIC RING-OPENING POLYMERIZATION

1-3 In a number of studies the synthesis of side-chain and mainchain LC dendrimers based on multi-step approaches has been described. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, the attachment of a mesogen to a polymer using the respective mesogenic molecule directly as an initiator for the polymerization has not yet been reported. The synthesis of liquid crystals based on cholesterol-initiated linear polyglycerols via ring-opening oxyanionic polymerization (ROP) of ethoxyethyl glycidyl ether (EEGE) is presented in this contribution. 4,5 Characterization of the phase behavior of the polymers has been performed, using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy (POM). Experimental Materials. All reagents and solvents were purchased from Acros and used as received, unless otherwise mentioned. Cholesterol was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich and stored at 4 °C. Dry solvents stored over molecular sieves were purchased from Fluka. Deuterated CDCl3 and DMSO-d6 were purchased from Deutero GmbH, dried and stored over molecular sieves. Ethoxyethyl glycidyl ether (EEGE) was prepared as described in literature 6 using glycidol and dried over CaH2 directly before use.