Effects of Molecular Structure Design on the Thermal, Mechanical, and Dielectric Properties of Polyarylene Ether Nitrile for Low-Dielectric Applications

Abstract

With the advent of the 5G communication era, low-dielectric materials have become essential for efficient signal transmission, making the development of polymer materials with low-dielectric constants a critical research focus. Polyarylene ether nitrile (PEN), a high-performance polymer material, exhibits exceptional mechanical properties, thermal stability, chemical resistance, etc. In this study, five different structured PENs were synthesized by molecular structure design with different structural bisphenols and benzonitrile, and the effects of molecular structure changes on the thermal, mechanical, and dielectric properties of PEN polymer films were studied in detail. The results show that the synthesized bisphenol AP-based PEN polymer (BPAP-PEN) has good mechanical properties (tensile strength of 70.15 MPa), high thermal stability (T _5% = 510°C), low-dielectric constant (k = 3.16 at 1 MHz), and low-dielectric loss (0.008 at 1 MHz). This approach offers a novel pathway for the development of high-performance polymer materials with low-dielectric properties.