Synthesis and evaluation of biodegradable copolyimide elastomer with tunable mechanical and thermal properties

Abstract

The copolymerization of biodegradable segments is one of the directions for preparing biodegradable elastomers. However, the introduction of biodegradable components usually leads to a sharp decline in the mechanical property and thermostability of materials, which hampers their further development and translation applications. Herein, we report a copolyimide elastomer with both rigid aliphatic/aromatic hard segments and elastic soft segment facilely synthesized via the straightforward melt-polycondensation based on a rationally designed aromatic bisimide diol, 1,4-butanediol, PEG1000, and 1,4-succinic acid. Such copolyimide elastomer shows advantages in both mechanical and biological properties compared with the traditional PBS-based elastomer. Moreover, the properties of such copolyimide elastomer can be facilely tuned via increasing or decreasing the mass ratio of hard segment to soft segment, and the mass ratio of the aromatic hard segment containing bisimide moieties to aliphatic hard segment, in which the higher content of hard segments and bisimide moieties are beneficial to improve the thermostability and mechanical properties of the elastomeric copolymer. Importantly, these elastomers can be biodegraded and are non-toxic to cells, showing sufficiently good biodegradability and cytocompatibility. Such elastomer is possibly considered to be a promising potential candidate for high-performance elastomers with biodegradability and cytocompatibility used in biomedicine materials and environmentally friendly materials.