Nano-boria reinforced polyimide composites with greatly enhanced thermal and mechanical properties via in-situ thermal conversion of boric acid

•In-situ thermal conversion to prepare B2O3 nanoparticles and B2O3/PI composite films.•B2O3 nanoparticle size is below 10 nm.•Great improvement on thermal stability.•Significant enhancement on mechanical properties.

High performance materials with excellent thermal stability and mechanical properties are highly required in high temperature area. The addition of inorganic particles is effective to improve the thermal and mechanical properties of polymers. In this work, B2O3 nanoparticles and their polymeric composites, B2O3/PI composite films, were formed by an in-situ thermal conversion. The morphology of B2O3/PI composite films were investigated by SEM, EDS and TEM. TGA and DMA were used to monitor the thermal properties of B2O3/PI composite films. The mechanical properties of the B2O3/PI composite films were characterized by tensile testing. The results indicated that the addition of B2O3 nanoparticles could significantly improve the thermal and mechanical properties of B2O3/PI composite films.

Graphical abstractB2O3/PI composite films prepared by in-situ thermal conversion showed greatly improvement on thermal and mechanical properties.Download high-res image (378KB)Download full-size image