ABSTRACT
JIRO SADANOBU* Polymer Research Institute, Teijin Limited, 2-1 Hinode-cho, Iwakuni Yamaguchi 740-8411, Japan
Abstract-A new concept for the processing and fabrication of rigid-rod polyimide, poly(pphenylenepyromellitimide), (PPPI) is proposed. In this approach, the highly swollen polyisoimide gel-film was used as a precursor and was biaxially stretched using gel-drawing technique. The geldrawn polyisoimide film was converted to a polyimide film by heat treatment at above 350°C. The gel-drawn PPPI film possesses a tensile strength of 500 MPa and a Young’s modulus of 20 GPa.
