Thermally reversible highly cross‐linked polymeric materials based on furan/maleimide <scp>D</scp>iels‐<scp>A</scp>lder adducts

Abstract

ABSTRACT A novel thermally reversible cross‐linked polymer has been synthesized by a Diels‐Alder (DA) reaction between bis(4‐maleimido‐phenyl)fluorene (cBMI) and tetrakis‐furan monomers (4F) under microwave (MW) irradiation. The ultimate aim of this work was the preparation of a thermosetting material recyclable by a simple thermal treatment. The use of the MW irradiation was necessary because under thermal conditions the DA polymerization could lead to materials only partially cross‐linked for a not desired equilibrium between DA and retro‐DA processes induced by the high temperature. The easy thermal degradation of this cross‐linked material was ascertained by appropriate experiments. Moreover, to better study the involved reactions of formation and decomposition, a more simple model‐compound was also synthesized. The reported data confirm the recyclability of the synthesized cross‐linked polymer by simply heating with the possibility of a regeneration of the polymer network by a further MW irradiation. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132 , 42314.