Colorless and Soluble High-Performance PFAS-free Polyimides from Aliphatic Anhydrides

Polyimide materials, as Kapton®, are widely used for flexible electronics substrates or as insulators, thanks to their wide range of thermal stability as well as excellent dielectric and mechanical properties. However, there are limitations in their processability and employment in new technologies due to their low solubility and deep amber staining, resulting from charge transfer interactions, established between polymer rigid chains. Currently, researchers are focusing on designing resins with excellent thermal and chemical stability, transparent and colorless with a high processability, in terms of viscosity and solubility. However, balancing among all those properties for this class of materials remains a big challenge today, as some of these properties seem to exclude others. In this episode, the focus will be on aliphatic anhydrides, which play a key role for the final polyimide’s properties enhancement, as it will be explained by B.Sc. Sara Greco, a chemist working on this topic (as part of her master thesis) in the R&D department of Valsynthese, a Swiss DCMO specialized in hazardous chemistry.