Polyimide incorporated cyanate ester/epoxy copolymers for high-temperature molding compounds

The rapid development of high-power devices has driven the requirement for high-temperature stable epoxy molding compounds. In this work, a designed polymer blend system consisting of cyanate ester/epoxy copolymers modified by polyimide (CE/EP-PI) has been studied. Polyimide used in this study has shown excellent dispersity in the cyanate ester and epoxy copolymer network (CE/EP), exhibiting homogeneous phase with a denser polymer network structure. With this polymer blend structure, CE/EP-PI system was proved to have a glass transition temperature as high as ~270 °C, increased modulus, and largely enhanced fracture toughness up to 2.06 MPa m^1/2. CE/EP-PI resins showed outstanding long-term stability at high temperature with low mass loss and increased fracture toughness after aging at 200 °C. This work provides a novel insight into the development of molding compounds based on polymer blends system with excellent high-temperature properties. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2018 , 56, 2412–2421