High-temperature-resistant polymeric adhesives with high servicing temperatures and high adhesion strengths are highly desired in aerospace, aviation, microelectronic and other high-tech areas. The currently used high-temperature resistant polymeric adhesives, such as polyamic acid (PAA), are usually made from the high contents of solvents in the composition, which might cause adhesion failure due to the undesirable voids caused by the evaporation of the solvents. In the current work, electrospun preimidized polyimide (PI) nano-fibrous membranes (NFMs) were proposed to be used as solvent-free or solvent-less adhesives for stainless steel adhesion. In order to enhance the adhesion reliability of the PI NFMs, thermally crosslinkable phenylethynyl end-cappers were incorporated into the PIs derived from 3,3’,4,4’-oxydiphthalic anhydride (ODPA) and 3,3-bis[4-(4-aminophenoxy)phenyl]phthalide (BAPPT). The derived phenylethynyl-terminated PETI-10K and PETI-20K with the controlled molecular weights of 10,000 g mol−1 and 20,000 g mol−1, respectively, showed good solubility in polar aprotic solvents, such as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) and N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc). The PI NFMs were successfully fabricated by electrospinning with the PETI/DMAc solutions. The ultrafine PETI NFMs showed the average fiber diameters (dav) of 627 nm for PETI-10K 695 nm for PETI-20K, respectively. The PETI NFMs showed good thermal resistance, which is reflected in the glass transition temperatures (Tgs) above 270 °C. The PETI NFMs exhibited excellent thermoplasticity at elevated temperatures. The stainless steel adherends were successfully adhered using the PETI NFMs as the adhesives. The PI NFMs provided good adhesion to the stainless steels with the single lap shear strengths (LSS) higher than 20.0 MPa either at room temperature (25 °C) or at an elevated temperature (200 °C).

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Optically transparent polymer films with excellent thermal and ultraviolet (UV) resistance have been highly desired in advanced optoelectronic fields, such as flexible substrates for photovoltaic devices. Colorless and transparent polyimide (CPI) films simultaneously possess the good thermal stability and optical transparency. However, conventional CPI films usually suffered from the UV exposure and have to face the deterioration of optical properties during the long-term service in UV environments. In the current work, the commercially available hindered amine light stabilizers (HALS) were tried to be incorporated into the semi-alicyclic CPI matrix with the aim of enhancing the UV exposure stability. For this target, a CPI-0 film was first prepared from hydrogenated pyromellitic dianhydride (HPMDA) and 2,2′-dimethylbenzidine (DMBZ) via a one-step polycondensation procedure. Then, the commercially available HALS were incorporated into the CPI-0 (HPMDA-DMBZ) film matrix to afford four series of CPI/HALS composite films. Experimental results indicated that the Tinuvin® 791 HALS showed the best miscibility with the CPI-0 film matrix and the derived CPI-D series of composite films exhibited the best optical transmittances. The CPI-D nanocomposite films showed apparently enhanced UV exposure stability via incorporation of the 791 additives. For the pristine CPI-0 film, after the UV exposure for 6 h, the optical properties, including the transmittance at the wavelength of 350 nm (T350), lightness (L*), yellow indices (b*), and haze obviously deteriorated with the T350 values from 55.7% to 17.5%, the L* values from 95.12 to 91.38, the b* values from 3.38 to 21.95, and the haze values from 1.46% to 9.33%. However, for the CPI-D-10 film (791: CPI-0 = 1.0 wt%, weight percent), the optical parameters were highly maintained with the T350 values from 61.4% to 53.8%, the L* values from 95.46 to 95.36, the b* values from 1.84 to 1.51, and the haze values from 0.69% to 3.34% under the same UV aging conditions.