Quelle European Coatings Journal
Ausgabe 06/2001
Seite 70
VD, Athawale
R. S. Bailkeri
M. V. Athawale
The review articte on tiquid crystalline
polymers and their widely accepted
areas of applications as coating mate:
rials covers 76 references. More em-
phasis is given on the variety of liquid
crystalline polymers that exhibit
coating properties. It can be conclud-
ed that liquid crystalline polymers have
tremendous potential as surface
coatings materials and investigation
‘about their chemical and physical prop-
erties will certainly reveal new dimen
sons of these materials.
Liquid crystal isa teem that exhibits partially
ordered fluid phases that are intermediate
between the three dimensional ordered erys=
talline state and the disordered or isotropic
fluid state. Although liquid crystals and iq-
Lid crystalline polymers (LCPS) are relatively
recent developments, yet liquid erystaline (XC)
bbehaviour has been known since 1888 when
Feinitzer{1] observed that cholesteryl ben:
zoate melted to form a turbid melt that
eventually clearedata higher temperature and
the term quid crystals wascoined by Lehmann
[2] to describe these materials Bowden ond
Pre (3 in 1937 observed that above a criti
‘eal concentration, a solution of tobacco mo-
saicvius formed twa phases, one of which was
birefringent. A LC phase in a solution of a
synthetic polymer, polyty-benzy|-L-glutamate)
was reported by Eliot ond Ambrose in 1960
[4]. Undoubtedly, the most important event
contributing tothe growth of LCPs was the de
velopment and subsequent commercialisation
(of high strength fibees from plylp-phenylene
‘erphthalamide), PTA by Dupont de nemours
a. in the 1970 [5h
The voluminous publications and patents on
liquid crystals and LCPS have led to numerous