The sorption of organic penetrants is found to be sensitive to thermal
annealing conditions in a series of glassy, nematic, thermotropic, random
copolyesters. Controlled thermal annealing of two polymers in this series
permitted a systematic variation of chain packing and, presumably, higher
order molecular suprastructure, ranging from a disordered amorphous
morphology to More ordered nematic liquid crystalline and semi-crystalline
morphologies. The development of liquid crystalline order appears to reduce
or preclude small molecule solubility in nematically ordered forms of these
polymers.