We followed the surface imide ring hydrolysis of fully imidized polyimide films by aqueous base solutions using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. The hydrolysis reaction was studied using several different polyimide films including spuncast and thermally imidized PMDA-ODA, Kapton-H, and Upilex-S films. The boundary between the modified layer at the surface and the underlying film is a sharp front behind which the conversion of the polyimide into poly(amic acid) is complete and ahead of which there is almost no hydrolysis. The modified layer grows linearly with the time it is exposed to the basic solution. The growth velocity increased strongly with increases in the temperature of the basic solution. Under the reasonable hypothesis that the growth of the modified layer is controlled by the kinetics of the hydrolysis of the imide ring at the interface, we extract an activation energy for this process in Kapton-H films of 60 kJ/mol as compared to 68 kJ/mol for Upilex-S. Using forward recoil spectrometry, we studied the amount of interpenetration when a second layer of deuterium-labeled poly(amic acid) was spun-cast onto the surface-modified PMDA/ODA film. We determined that the interface between the spun-cast layer and the base layer is broader when the modification depth is greater. The fracture energy of such an interface, as measured with a T-peel test, rises rapidly as a function of modification depth and saturates at a value ∼20 times the value for an interface formed from PMDA/ODA polyimide with an unmodified surface.

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The combustion of a liquid droplet adjacent to a cold surface was studied experimentally. To isolate the effect of the proximity of the droplet to the surface, the ambient pressure (0.101 MPa), liquid composition ( n -heptane), initial liquid volume (7 x 10 -4 ml), surface material (quartz) and ambient temperature (20 ± 2°C) were held constant. A range of distances L from the surface were studied (1 mm < L < ∞). Both horizontal and vertical surface orientations were examined. A more limited set of experiments were carried out in a low gravity (i. e. low buoyancy) environment to provide a basis of comparison with relevant theoretical analyses. The flame shape, soot formation, fuel condensation, and droplet burning rate were all found to be strongly affected by the proximity of the droplet to the surface. For sufficiently large L the flame was observed to be closed around the droplet throughout burning. As L decreased, the flame was truncated. The droplet burning rate decreased as the droplet was brought progressively closer to the surface (in qualitative agreement with a relevant closed form potential flow solution to the analogous problem of a droplet burning adjacent to an adiabatic surface) and the burning rate of a droplet adjacent to a vertical surface was larger than for a horizontal surface. Surface orientation effects were observed to be absent for burning at low gravity. The extent of sooting as revealed by the flame colour was decreased, and fuel vapours condensed in a lens-like shape on the surface, as L was sufficiently reduced.