Facile and environment-friendly preparation of high-performance polyimide aerogels using water as the only solvent. Issue 16 (6th April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zheng, Shuai; Jiang, Lei; Zhang, Changqi; Ma, Ning; Liu, Xueqiang
• Is Part Of: Polymer chemistry. Volume 13:Issue 16(2022)
• Page Start: 2375
• Page End: 2382
• Publication Date: 2022-04-06
• Subjects: Polymers -- Periodicals; Macromolecules -- Periodicals; Polymerization -- Periodicals; 547.705
• DOI: 10.1039/d1py01573g
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1759-9954

Abstract

Abstract : In this paper, an environmentally friendly PI aerogel was prepared by a sol–gel process and freeze-drying using water as the only solvent. The prepared PI aerogel has excellent mechanical properties and great thermal properties. Abstract : This study described a facile and environmentally friendly method for preparing polyimide (PI) aerogels via a sol–gel process and freeze-drying without the use of organic solvents. The prepared PI aerogels showed excellent mechanical properties. Their compressive strength can reach 4 MPa, which was mainly due to the 3, 3′, 4, 4′-biphenyl tetracarboxylic dianhydride (BPDA) and phenylenediamine (PDA) used in the synthesis of their fully aromatic backbone. The PI aerogels obtained here showed low bulk densities (0.098–0.143 g cm −3 ), low shrinkage (10%), high specific surface areas (334–389 m 2 g −1 ) and high porosity (92%). In addition, the PI aerogels exhibited excellent thermal stability and thermal insulation properties. The onset decomposition temperature of the PI aerogel was up to 560 °C while the thermal conductivity at room temperature was 0.036–0.038 W m −1 K −1 .