Structure to properties relations of BPDA and PMDA backbone hybrid diamine polyimide aerogels

• Published in: Polymer (Guilford) 2019-08, Vol.176, p.213-226
• Main Authors: Mosanenzadeh, Shahriar Ghaffari, Saadatnia, Zia, Shi, Feng, Park, Chul B., Naguib, Hani E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aerogels; Backbone; Biphenyl; BPDA; Compression; Dianhydrides; Hybrid aerogel; Mechanical properties; Mesoporous solids; Monomers; Morphology; Parameters; PMDA; Polyimide; Shrinkage; Thermal conductivity
• ISSN: 0032-3861; 1873-2291
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymer.2019.05.050

Due to the sensitive relations between aerogel physical, thermal, and mechanical properties, improving the polyimide aerogels performance requires understanding of their structure to properties relations, along with introducing a robust method to tailor aerogels properties to achieve the optimum performance. Given this background, this work extensively studies the structure to properties relations of pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) and biphenyl-tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (BPDA) backbone polyimide aerogels at varying hybrid diamine fractions. Based on the results, combination of rigid and flexible diamine monomers at varying fractions successfully tailored the properties of the hybrid diamine polyimide aerogels. Also, physical, thermal, and mechanical properties of the two aerogel backbones presented a tendency to the hybrid diamine monomers fraction. However, the opposite trends of the two backbones suggested that, rather than the diamine or dianhydride monomers individually, their network structure and bonding nature would define the aerogel behavior. Furthermore, this work shows that the shrinkage and morphology are the two main parameters, those describe the aerogels properties. Therefore, tailoring these two parameters can provide aerogels with optimum performance. The fabricated aerogels presented wide range of properties with the maximum observed open cell content of 96.6% and compression modulus of 16.9 MPa along with the effective thermal conductivity and density as low as 32.5 mW/mK and 0.056 g/cm3, respectively. [Display omitted] •Study on structure to properties relations of hybrid diamine polyimide aerogels.•Tailoring hybrid polyimide aerogels properties by altering the diamine fraction.•Hybrid aerogels by combining a rigid and a flexible diamine monomer.•The shrinkage and morphology are the main parameters, defining aerogels properties.