CURING OF LIQUID-CRYSTALLINE EPOXY-RESINS WITH A BIGUANIDE

This work extends the authors' investigations on liquid crystalline ep oxy resins prepared from diglycidyl ether of 4,4'-dihydroxybiphenyl (D GE-DHBP) and aliphatic dicarboxylic compounds (ADC) or difunctional ar omatic compounds. Syntheses and properties of these liquid crystalline epoxy resins are described elsewhere. In this paper a study on the cu ring reaction of the above mentioned liquid crystalline epoxy resins i s presented. Ortho-tolylbiguanide was applied as the curing agent. The curing reactions were investigated by differential scanning calorimet ry, microscopic observations and IR spectroscopy. Depending upon the t emperature program of curing, it was possible to obtain polymeric netw orks with liquid crystalline order. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.