It
is of great significance to disclose the diverse aging pathways
for polymers under multiple factors, so as to predict and control
the potential aging evolution. However, the current methods fail to
distinguish multiple pathways (multi-paths) of polymer aging due to
the lack of spatiotemporal resolution. In this work, using polyimide
as a model polymer, the hydroxyl, carboxyl, and amino groups from
the polyimide aging process were labeled using specific fluorescent
probes through boron-oxygen, imine, and thiourea linkages, respectively.
When the excitation and emission wavelengths of each fluorescent probe
were controlled, the multi-paths in polyimide aging can be visualized
individually and simultaneously in three-dimensional fluorescent images.
The overall aging process under hydrothermal treatment was destructured
into the pyrolysis and hydrolysis pathways. Three-dimensional dynamic
studies discovered that the increased humidity, along with the decreased
oxygen content, could hamper the pyrolysis reaction and accelerate
the hydrolysis reaction, leading to severe degradation of the overall
polyimide aging. More importantly, the oxygen showed a higher regulation
coefficient in accelerating the pyrolysis reaction, than the water
vapor in motivating the hydrolysis reactions. Such a multidimensional
identification methodology is able to guide the long-term use of polymers
and control their aging process to a harmless direction in advance
by tuning the contents of oxygen and water vapor.