Nonisothermal and isothermal oxidative degradation behavior of thermotropic liquid crystal polyesters containing kinked bisphenol AF and bisphenol A units

Abstract

The polyester P–bisphenol AF 2.5 (BPAF 2.5) and P-bisphenol A 2.5 (BPA 2.5) with low melting temperature and high glass transition temperature can be obtained by introducing 2.5 mol% BPAF/BPA and terephthalic acid (TA) units respectively into the molecular chain of poly(oxybenzoate- co-oxynaphthoate) (P-HBA70). In this study, the nonisothermal and isothermal oxidative degradation behavior of polyester P-BPA2.5 and P-BPAF2.5 were investigated comparatively with parent polyester P-HBA70 by thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy measurements. The introduction of BPAF/BPA units into the molecular chain of P-HBA70 strongly influenced the degradation behavior of polyesters. Four multiple heating rate methods including Kissinger, Kim–Park, Flynn–Wall–Ozawa, and Friedman methods were applied to evaluate the dynamic thermal stability successfully. The following order of the activation energy values: P-BPAF2.5 > P-HBA70 > P-BPA2.5 can be found for the three samples. However, from the results obtained by the standard isoconversional method, the P-BPA2.5 showed a better thermal stability as compared to P-BPAF2.5 under isothermal atmosphere.