Isotactic polystyrene (i-PS) was employed as a matrix to disperse a metallo-organic polymer of [Fe(II) (4-octadecyl-1,2,4-triazole) 3(ClO4)2] in order to obtain novel functional materials exhibiting thermal spin-crossover transition. A detailed investigation of the structure of the metallo-organic polymer and metallo-organic polymer/iPS blends has been carried out by DSC, WAXD and SAXS techniques as a function of temperature and metallo-organic polymer/iPS proportion. The results obtained confirm on the one hand that a structural transition associated with a change in the magnetic susceptibility of the metallo-organic polymer is preserved in the presence of i-PS. This transition was found to be associated to both, an inter-conversion of lamellar structures into hexagonal structures and to an increase of inter-sheet distances within the lamellar structures in metallo-organic polymer films prepared by casting from toluene solutions. On the other hand, an increase of the degree of crystallinity of the iPS is observed in the presence of the metallo-organic polymer which suggests some nucleating effect of the metallo-organic polymer in the crystallization of isotactic polystyrene. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Financial support from CICYT (MAT2008-01073 and MAT2008-03232) and Fundación Domingo Martínez is gratefully acknowledged. M.R. thanks the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain) for his FPI fellowship. R.H thanks CSIC for a JAE postdoctoral contract. Authors acknowledge E. Verde and M. Hernández for WAXD experiments and AFM images, respectively.

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