Synthesis and Characterization of Hybrid Poly(phenylenemethylene) Having Functionalized Silsesquioxanes (POSS)

New hybrid poly(phenylenemethylene) with functionalized polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (PPM-POSS) and poly(phenylenemethylene) with benzyl moieties (PPM-Benzyl) were prepared by the reaction of POSS-DMP or Benzyl-DMP and paraformaldehyde, respectively. The synthesized polymers could be well characterized by H-1 NMR, FT-IR, DSC, TGA, and EDS. This type of hybrid poly(phenylenemethylene) containing side-chain-tethered POSS pendant units consists of a linear rigid-rod poly(phenylenemethylene) in the main chain and POSS branches as inorganic parts attached to the main chain. This particular molecular architecture of hybrid PPM-POSS possesses the higher thermal decomposition and no glass transition temperatures relative to those of PPM-Benzyl with no POSS units. Furthermore, PPM-POSS shows very uniform distribution of spherical particles with a mean diameter 100 nm, while PPM-Benzyl shows uneven and large spherical particles with 1-5 mu m size, as evidenced by scanning electron microscopy studies.