The application of thiol-ene reaction on preparing UV curable bismaleimide-containing liquid formulations

Thiol-ene reaction method was introduced to photopolymerize a new liquid formulation of commercial bismaleimide, as an alternative to traditional thermal cure method presently used for BMI in the industry. UV curing was shown to be an efficient method which promoted the reaction rate significantly and was able to achieve this at low temperatures (30–50 °C). The liquid formulation is stable and has low viscosity. The cure mechanism and cure kinetics were studied based on the data elucidated from the DPC and FTIR. The cured thin film can achieve very high thermal stability (∼400 °C) and BMI can retard the thermal degradation temperature and rate.