A series of noble poly(amide-imide)s and copoly(amide-imide)s bearing 1,2-bis(4-phenoxy)benzene units were synthesized by the direct polycondensation of 1,2-bis(4-trimellitimidophenoxy)benzene[1,2-PTPB] with a combination of commercially available aromatic diamines and diacids such as m-phenylene diamine, p-phenylene diamine(PPD), isophthalic acid and terephthalic acid(TA) in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone(NMP) using triphenyl phosphite and pyridine as a condensing agent in the presence of dehydrating agent (CaCl2). The resulting polymers had inherent viscosities in the range of 0.37~0.78 dL/g and most of them were soluble m common organic solvents including NMP, dimethylacetamide, dimethylsulfoxide, dimethylformamide, and m-cresol. Wide-angle X-ray diffractograms revealed that the copoly(amide-imide) derived from PPD with mixed acids of 1,2-BTPB and TA, showed crystalline nature, whereas all of the other polymers were found to be amorphous. The glass transition temperatures of the polymers occurred over the temperature range of 270~323℃ in their differential scanning calorimetry curves and their 10% weight loss temperature, determined by thermogravimetric analysis in air and nitrogen atmosphere, were in the range 465~535℃, 500~550℃, respectively, indicating their good thermal stability.

In this work, the effect of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) addition on physicochemical characteristics of CNFs-reinforced epoxy matrix nanocomposites was studied. Poly(amide imide) solutions in dimethylformamide were electrospun into webs consisting of 250±50 nm fibers which were used to produce CNFs through stabilization and carbonization processes. As a result, the CNFs with average diameter of 200±20 nm were obtained after carbonization process. The nanocomposites with CNFs showed an improvement of thermal stability parameters and fracture toughness factors, compared to those of the specimen without CNFs, which could be probably attributed to the higher specific surface area and larger aspect ratio of CNFs, resulting in improving the mechanical interlocking in the nanocomposites. Also, the applied external loading can effectively transfer to CNFs because strong interactions are resulted between the epoxy matrix and the CNFs.