Polyimides

AbstractPolyimides are high performance polymers employed as key materials in advanced industrial applications, including aerospace, electrical, and electronic engineering. Polyimides are capable of functioning at high temperature and in oxidative environments, and have outstanding mechanical strength, excellent electrical properties, and wide ranging chemical resistance. One of the advantageous characteristics of polyimides over other high temperature polymers is their processibility through soluble intermediates. Polyimide polymerization is a thermodynamically driven condensation reaction and can be performed in a simple manner, includingin situpolymerization. It is also a versatile system in terms of synthesizing wide varieties of copolymer compositions for the required properties. In this article, various synthetic methods for polyimides, and properties and applications of principal commercial polyimides, are reviewed. Advances in the chemistry and applications of polyimides are also described.