A Novel Anisotropic Electroactive Liquid Crystalline Polyimide Containing Aniline Trimer Segments

A novel type of liquid crystalline polyimide with good electroactive properties has been successfully synthesized through polycondensation in the component solvent of benzene sulfonyl chloride, dimethyl formamide and pyridine by N,N’-hexane-1,6-diylbis(trimellitimides), p-hydroxybenzoic acid, 4,4'-dihydroxybenzophenone and double amino-capped aniline trimer (N1,N1'-(1,4-phenylene)bis(benzene-1,4-diamine)). The structure of the obtained polymer was characterized and verified. The polymer can be dissolved in the component solvent of phenol and chloroform or DMF, NMP alone, et al. The molecular weight (Mn=1.7×104, Mw=8.2×104，PDI=4.8) was determined by gel permeantion chromatography using DMF as eluent. By combining the excellent properties of both polyimide and oligoaniline, such material could be used in more broad fields. Furthermore, due to the orientation properties of liquid crystalline property, the conductivity of this polymer is anisotropic, with 10-6 S/cm along the shear direction vs. 10-7 S/cm perpendicular to the shear direction.