Heat stable and organosoluble polyimides containing laterally-attached phenoxy phenylene groups

In this research a diamine monomer containing two phenoxy phenylene lateral groups, 2,2′-bis[(p-phenoxy phenyl)]-4,4′-diaminodiphenyl ether (PPAPE) was used to prepare novel wholly aromatic polyimides by thermal or chemical two-step polycondensation reactions. Comonomers including pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA), 4,4′-oxydiphthalic anhydride (ODPA), and 3,3′,4,4′-benzophenonetetracarboxylic dianhydride (BTDA) were used for the polyimidization reactions. A reference polyimide was also prepared by the reaction of 4,4′-diaminodiphenyl ether (DADPE) with pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA). The limited viscosity numbers as well as \( \overline{M}_n \) and \( \overline{M}_w \) values of the resulting polymers were determined. All PPAPE-resulted polyimides had excellent organosolubility in common polar solvents. A low crystallinity extent was only observed using their wide-angle X-ray diffractograms (WAXD). The prepared hinged polyimides could also be cast into transparent and flexible films. The glass transition temperatures of the resulting polyimides were determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses. The thermograms obtained from thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) showed that the phenoxy phenylene lateral groups attached to the macromolecular backbones had no substantial diminishing effect on the thermal stability of these structurally-modified polyimides.