Fluorinated anhydride-terminated imide oligomers toward high-performance epoxy thermosets enabled by hydroxyl elimination and low dielectric polarizability strategy

In this paper, for the first time, a novel fluorinated anhydride-terminated imide oligomer 6FDA-ODA was prepared with a facile and one-step route, and used as the multifunctional co-curing agent of methylhexahy-drophthalic anhydride (MHHPA) for commercial bisphenol A epoxy resin (DGEBA). For the epoxy thermoset containing 30 phr of 6FDA-ODA, 6FDA-ODA-30 exhibited a high glass transition temperature (T-g) of 151.6 degrees C and an initial degradation temperature of 382.5 degrees C, and also showed a 211%, 134% and 11.8% increase in impact strength (20.5 kJ/m(2) vs. 6.6 kJ/m(2)), char yield (in N-2) (15.2% vs. 6.5%) and tensile strength (71.3 MPa vs. 63.8 MPa), respectively, compared with the pure epoxy thermoset (6FDA-ODA-0). Moreover, 6FDA-ODA-30 possessed a low dielectric constant of 3.23 at 1 MHz and high water resistance (water absorption = 0.52%) due to the introduction of bulky trifluommethyl (-CF3) and imide moieties. This paper provides a facile design strategy and new opportunity for synthesizing anhydride-terminated imide oligomer, possessing high potential for the utilization in advanced matrix materials for microelectronic and aerospace industries.