Synthesis of Cardo Based Poly(arylene ether)s for Flexible Plastic Substrates and Their Properties

Synthesis of Cardo Based Poly(arylene ether)s for Flexible Plastic Substrates and Their Properties

New poly(arylene ether)s (PAEs) with both transparency and heat-resistance were prepared by a polycondensation of FBPODS, an ordered-sequence aromatic dihalide, and cardo typed aromatic diols containing fluorene and/or adamantane moiety and also non-cardo typed 1,5-naphthalene diol. The resulting polymers had their glass transition temperatures ranged from 202 to $247^{\circ}C$. Based on TGA data, they exhibited excellent thermal stabilities, showing 5% weight loss at $434-487^{\circ}C$. They had low thermal expansion coefficients of 58-59 ppm at temperature range of $50-200^{\circ}C$ as well as good mechanical properties with moduli of 1757-2143 MPa. The optical transmittance for the PAE films was over 70% at 550 nm, except for the PAE that contains naphthalene moiety (30% at 550 nm). They also showed water uptake of about 0.68% regardless of their chemical compositions. Therefore, the newly developed PAEs show strong potential as plastic substrates for flexible devices for display, solar cell and e-paper.