Ionic conductivities of the LiCF3SO3 complexes with liquid crystalline aromatic polyesters having oligo(oxyethylene) pendants

We have synthesized new aromatic polyesters (DiPEG-HQ and DiPEG-BP) by condensation polymerization of a terephthalic acid derivative bearing a pendant oligo(oxyethylene) ((DP) over bar = 7, (MW) over bar = 350), which has a methoxy terminal group, and two different aromatic diols, hydroquinone and 4,4'-biphenol. The synthesized polymers were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarizing microscopy, and X-ray diffractometry for their liquid crystallinity (LC), thermal transitions, and structural morphologies in mesophases. The morphology of the LC phases depends strongly on the length of the rigid backbone repeating unit. The DiPEG-BP polymer having a longer repeating unit exhibits both layered and nematic structures before isotropization, whereas the DiPEG-HQ polymer having a shorter repeating unit shows only the layered structure in the mesophase. We found that the layer spacing for DiPEG-HQ is larger than that for DiPEG-BP. Both polymers easily form complexes with LiCF3SO3; we studied this complex formation by FT-IR spectroscopy. The layer spacing of the polymer-electrolyte composites increases upon increasing the amount of the lithium salt. The polymer/salt electrolyte mixtures we investigated at molar ratios of EO: salt in the range of 5-20 exhibit electrical conductivity values at 40degreesC of 2.4 x 10(-5) and 1.1 x 10(-5) S/cm for DiPEG-HQ/LiCF3SO3 and DiPEG-BP/LiCF3SO3, respectively. At 80degreesC, these values are higher: 4.6 x 10(-4) and 2.5 x 10(-4) S/cm, respectively. The activation energy of conductivity depends strongly on the salt concentration.