A new and efficient synthetic method of a liquid crystalline epoxy resin with biphenol and aromatic ester group

This article describes a high efficient and economical method to synthesize a liquid crystalline epoxy resin (LCER) containing biphenol and aromatic ester group, 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbiphenyl-4,4′-diyl bis(4-(oxiran-2-ylmethoxy) benzoate) (4). First, 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbiphenyl-4,4′-diyl bis(4-hydroxybenzoate) (3) was prepared by direct esterification of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbiphenyl-4,4′-diol (2) with p-hydroxybenzoic acid (1) in the presence of a certain amount of p-toluene sulfonic acid (p-TSA) as catalyst. And then (4) was synthesized by the reaction of (3) with epichlorohydrin. The chemical structure, melting range, and liquid crystalline phase transition behavior of (4) were characterized by FT-IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, mass spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and polarized optical microscopy (POM).