Lightweight and highly heat-resistant copolymerized polyimide foams for superior thermal insulation and acoustic absorption

The development of lightweight and highly heat-resistant polyimide foams (PIFs) remains a great challenge in areas of aerospace, military ships, transportation, and industries. Herein, a series of lightweight and highly thermal-resistant copolymerized PIFs are successfully fabricated by the “stepwise heating-holding” thermal foaming of the copolymerized polyester ammonium salts (C-PEAS), using 3,3′,4,4′-benzophenone tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (BTDA) and 2,3,3′,4′-biphenyl tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (α-BPDA) as codianhydride, and p-phenylenediamine (PDA) as diamine. The introduction of α-BPDA increases the rigidity of PI molecule chains and foamability of C-PEAS, and significantly improves the heat resistance of PIFs. The resultant copolymerized PIFs exhibit ultra-low densities (<10 kg m⁻³), excellent heat resistance (T_g ranging from 351.2 °C to 405.6 °C), and high thermal stability. Moreover, they possess high flame retardancies (LOI>44 %) and low thermal conductivities (as low as 0.0463 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ at 20 °C and no more than 0.0825 W m⁻¹ K⁻¹ at 200 °C), demonstrating their excellent thermal insulation properties in a wide temperature range. After the continuous heating at 200 °C for 40 min, the upper surface of PIFs present low average temperatures less than 60 °C. Additionally, the copolymerized PIFs exhibit remarkable acoustic properties with average acoustic absorption coefficients above 0.6 and noise reduction coefficients (NRC) above 0.3. Therefore, the lightweight and highly heat-resistant copolymerized PIFs show great application potentials in the extreme environments of aerospace, military ships, transportation, and industries.