Multifunctional Nanostructured Thin-Film Polyimide Aerogels with Ultra High Thermal Insulation Properties

Polyimide (PI) aerogels are a novel class of porous materials, which due to their remarkable features, including lightweight, high service temperature, super thermal insulation, and low dielectric constant, have received considerable attention for industrial applications. The previously studied PI aerogels were mostly in the form of bulk monolithic, and a very limited number of studies were conducted on thin film configuration with enhanced functionality. In this study, we propose a novel multifunctional thin film PI aerogel with nanostructured assembly as an efficient thermal insulator. Investigation of physical and thermal properties of fabricated aerogels confirmed their multifunctionality. Studying the structural morphologies of aerogels revealed their interconnected nanostructured assembly with fiber diameters < 33 nm. Furthermore, such a porous structure with over 90% porosity could effectively lower the solid thermal conductivity and thus contribute to their super thermal insulation behavior. It was further demonstrated that due to the imide ring (-CO-NH-CO-) in the PI backbone, they exhibit excellent thermal stability with onset of decomposition of over 510 °C. Such a combined extraordinary features of the developed thin film PI aerogels made them an ideal candidate to be used as ultra high thermal insulator for the next generation of electronic devices.