Incorporation of N-phenyl in poly(benzimidazole imide)s and improvement in H2O-absorbtion and transparency

Guangtao Qian; Fengna Dai; Haiquan Chen; Mengxia Wang; Mengjie Hu; Chunhai Chen; Youhai Yu

doi:10.1039/d0ra10138a

Incorporation of N-phenyl in poly(benzimidazole imide)s and improvement in H₂O-absorbtion and transparency

RSC Adv. 2021 Jan 19;11(6):3770-3776. doi: 10.1039/d0ra10138a. eCollection 2021 Jan 14.

Authors

Guangtao Qian¹, Fengna Dai¹, Haiquan Chen¹, Mengxia Wang¹, Mengjie Hu¹, Chunhai Chen¹, Youhai Yu¹

Affiliation

¹ Center for Advanced Low-Dimension Materials, State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Material Science and Engineering, Donghua University Shanghai 201620 P. R. China yuyouhai@dhu.edu.cn.

Abstract

5-Amine-2-(4-amino-benzene)-1-phenyl-benzimidazole (N-PhPABZ) was successfully synthesized and polymerized with 3,3',4,4'-biphenyl tetracarboxylic dianhydride (BPDA) to obtain a novel N-phenyl-poly(benzimidazole imide) (N-Ph-PBII). The successful incorporation of N-phenyl addressed the issue of high H₂O-absorption of traditional PBIIs while retained the superheat resistance property. The resulting N-Ph-PBII possessed a high glass-transition temperature (T _g) up to 425 °C and a low affinity for water of 1.4%. Furthermore, the loose molecular packing and noncoplanar structures led to an increase in optical transparency for the modified PBII.