Herein, lightweight rigid polyimide foams (PIFs) with
excellent
mechanical and thermal properties were fabricated by constructing
dual crosslinking structures combined with the thermal foaming of
polyester ammonium salt (PEAS) precursor powders. The dual crosslinking
network relied on the self-crosslinking of pararosaniline base (PA)
and active crosslinking derived from the breakage of CC bonds
in 5-norbornene-2, 3-dicarboxylic anhydride (NA) under heating. The
results showed that melt viscosity and micro-foaming behavior of PEASs
and the cell morphology of PIFs could be regulated by varying the
molar ratio of PA/NA and the number of repeating units amid crosslinking
points. The compressive strength of PIFP1BMN3-5 (density:
165.5 kg·m–3) with dual crosslinking structures
at 10% strain reached 1.36 MPa at room temperature and 0.75 MPa at
200 °C. The PIFs exhibited outstanding thermal properties with
the initial thermal degradation temperature falling in a temperature
range of 458.2–503.0 °C and the glass-transition temperatures
exceeding 310 °C. In addition, PIFs exhibited excellent thermal
insulation properties since the thermal conductivity of PIFs was between
0.048 and 0.065 W·m–1 K–1, and the temperature increase of the top surface of the cubic sample
block (height: 15 mm) was approximately 20 °C when they were
placed on a preheated hot stage at 200 °C for 30 min. Thus, mechanically
strong rigid PIFs with dual crosslinking structures were successfully
prepared, which show promising applications as lightweight, high-temperature-resistant
structural materials in high-end engineering fields.
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