Polyimides crystallinity

Since successful commercialization of Kapton by Du Pont Company in the 1960s (10), numerous compositions of polyimide and various new methods of syntheses have been described in the Hterature (1—5). A successful result for each method depends on the nature of the chemical components involved in the system, including monomers, intermediates, solvents, and the polyimide products, as well as on physical conditions during the synthesis. Properties such as monomer reactivity and solubiHty, and the glass-transition temperature,T, crystallinity, T, and melt viscosity of the polyimide products ultimately determine the effectiveness of each process. Accordingly, proper selection of synthetic method is often critical for preparation of polyimides of a given chemical composition. 

Relatively few processible polyimides, particularly at a reasonable cost and iu rehable supply, are available commercially. Users of polyimides may have to produce iutractable polyimides by themselves in situ according to methods discussed earlier, or synthesize polyimides of unique compositions iu order to meet property requirements such as thermal and thermoxidative stabilities, mechanical and electrical properties, physical properties such as glass-transition temperature, crystalline melting temperature, density, solubility, optical properties, etc. It is, therefore, essential to thoroughly understand the stmcture—property relationships of polyimide systems, and excellent review articles are available (1—5,92). 

Semicrystalline Polyimides. Semicrystalline polyimides containing carbonyl and ether groups have been synthesized by the group at the NASA Langley Research Center (37). One such material, designated LARC-CPI, which is an acronym for Langley Research Center—Crystalline Polyimide,... 

Lubricity of crystalline polymers is usually higher than that of amorphous polymers. Excellent machinery parts are made from crystalline nylon-6,6 resins, eg, gears, cams, wedges, and other components not requiring lubrication. Gears made of amorphous polyimide resin, on the other hand, do not exhibit this feature. 

Fig. 1. Engineering resins cost vs annual volume (11) (HDT, °C) A, polyetheretherketone (288) B, polyamideimide (>270) C, polyarylether sulfone (170- >200) D, polyimide (190) E, amorphous nylons (124) F, poly(phenylene sulfide) (>260) G, polyarylates (170) H, crystalline nylons (90—220) I, polycarbonate (130) J, midrange poly(phenylene oxide) alloy (107—150) K, polyphthalate esters (180—260) and L, acetal resins (110—140).

Some examples concerning the polyimide synthesis by condensation of the crystalline salts obtained with the aliphatic or aromatic diamines and aromatic tetraacids will be discussed in Section 5.4.1. 

The first patent of Edwards and Robinson147 claims the condensations of pyromel-litic acid and aliphatic diamine salt to prepare polyimide. Recently, that approach has been revisited, and biphenyl tetracarboxylic and pyromellitic acids give a salt monomer by reaction with 1 mol of an aliphatic diamine (octamethylene diamine and dodecamethylene diamine). The salts were polymerized under 250 MPa at 250°C for 5 h in closed reaction vessels (Fig. 5.32) giving crystalline polymers.148 By reaction of pyromellitic tetraacid with oxydianiline, it has been possible to isolate a monomeric salt. It was polymerized under 30 MPa giving a PMDA-ODA polyimide with water elimination. 

The thermal imidization of a polyamic acid film (PMDA-ODA or BPDA-ODA) obtained by casting an NMP solution leads to an amorphous polyimide. Two different teams have shown that a polyamic acid solutions in NMP heated at 200°C for a short time (20 min) gives polyimide particles fully cyclized and highly crystalline, as shown by X-ray diffraction and solid 13C NMR spectroscopy.151152 The chemical imidization of the same solution gives only amorphous particles. The difference between the cyclization of a solution and a casted film in the same solvent is intriguing. In the case of the solution, the temperature and the heating time are lower than in the case of the casted film as a consequence, a less organized structure would be expected for the particle. 

Crystalline polyimide powders, 304 Crystalline transition temperature. See Melting temperature (Tm) Crystallization rate, for processing semicrystalline polymers, 44 CTE. See Coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE)... 

Polyimide cyclization, 305 Polyimide powders, crystalline, 304 Polyimides, 265-319 AB, 304-307... 

The third poly(aryl ether) surveyed as a coblock for polyimide copolymerization was poly(aryl ether ether ketone), PEEK, which is a highly crystalline polymer (40-50 % crystallinity) with a Tg of 145 °C and a Tj of 340 °C. However, PEEK is only soluble in diphenylsulfone at temperatures in excess of 300 °C or in strong acids [50]. This insolubility in organic solvents makes the synthesis and... 

Transient Tms have been observed in other systems (i.e. polyimides) and appear to be due to synthetic conditions coupled with chemical structure. Under the same synthetic conditions, polymers of certain chemical structures form transient crystalline phases whereas others do not For example, when the polyamide acid from the reaction of 3,3, 4,4 -benzophenonetetracarboxylic di-... 

In the work of Critchley et al., in polyimides in which difluoromethylene chains of varying length are used as spacer groups in both the diamine and dianhydride, the Tg decreases with increasing length. Further, in this series crystalline species have higher 2 s (see Table 13.7). 

The structural anisotropy in crystalline or structurally ordered BPDA-PFMB films was studied in this laboratory with wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) methods. In brief, WAXD experiments were designed to examine both the reflection and transmission modes of thin-fihn samples. In addition, uniaxially oriented polyimide fiber WAXD patterns were obtained to aid in the identification of the film structure. The film WAXD pattern obtained from the reflection mode corresponded well to the fiber pattern scanned along the equatorial direction (Figure 16.3), " which indicates that the reflection mode pattern represents the (hkQ) diffractions. On the other hand, as shown in Figure 16.4, the (001) diffractions were predominant in the film WAXD pattern obtained via the transmission mode. This pattern corresponded to the fiber pattern scanned along the meridian direction. These experimental observations clearly indicate that the c-axes of the crystals are preferentially oriented parallel to the film surface however, within the film, they are randomly oriented. 4.2 5 j( should be pointed out that the WAXD experiments are only sensitive to crystalline or ordered structures in polyimide films. They do not provide any information on the amorphous regions. 

Imidisation of PCA based on 4,4 -di-(/7-aminophenoxy)-benzophenone was accompanied by the precipitation of the polymers from the reaction solutions, which is partially due to crystallinity in the polyimides formed. This appears to hinder the solubility of the polymers in amide and phenolic solvents. Polyimides based on l,l-dichloro-2,2-di-(/7-aminophenoxyphenyl)-ethylene are more soluble. The polymer formed from this diamine and the dianhydride of benzophenone-3,3 -4,4 -tetracarboxylic acid is soluble in a TCE/phenol (3 1) mixture. 

Much attention has been paid to the synthesis of fluorine-containing condensation polymers because of their unique properties (43) and different classes of polymers including polyethers, polyesters, polycarbonates, polyamides, polyurethanes, polyimides, polybenzimidazoles, and epoxy prepolymers containing pendent or backbone-incorporated bis-trifluoromethyl groups have been developed. These polymers exhibit promise as film formers, gas separation membranes, seals, soluble polymers, coatings, adhesives, and in other high temperature applications (103,104). Such polymers show increased solubility, glass-transition temperature, flame resistance, thermal stability, oxidation and environmental stability, decreased color, crystallinity, dielectric constant, and water absorption. 

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