Thermal Processing and Mechanical Testing of Ionic Polyimide and Composite Materials

Synthetic polyimides are of great interest for their unique physical and chemical properties. Through the use of unique intermediates, our group has modified the archetypical polyimide synthesis scheme to create ‘Ionic Polyimides’ which featuring alternating ionic and imide segments. This unique polymer backbone lends itself to incorporating “free” ionic liquids (ILs) into its structure, including those that can impart an additional functionality/reactivity within the composite. In this study, polyimide and polyimide-IL composite filaments were extruded and their mechanical (i.e. tensile) properties were characterized. The composite filaments that contained “free” IL exhibited remarkable elasticity when compared to the neat ionic polyimide filaments. These unique processability and mechanical behaviors of ionic polyimides and composites are promising for their use in 3-D printing. This presentation will also discuss preliminary results of a wet spinning method as a technique to producing ionic polyimide fibers from solution.