초록
Mono-, or di-substituted chlorodicyanovinyl benzene compound was reacted with an excess amount of ethylenediamine to give corresponding imidazoline product with high reaction yield. This reaction occurs by stable imidazoline ring-forming process through nucleophilic attack of terminal amine on the enaminonitrile adduct, the reaction intermediate, toward electropositive enamine carbon, which is accompanied by the release of neutral malononitrile moiety. The similar reaction with 1,2-phenylenediamine produced stable enaminonitrile-amine adduct at lower temperature which could be cyclized intramolecularly to thermally stable benzimidazole at elevated temperature in solution or in solid state. From the difunctional compound of both reactants, poly(enaminonitrile-amine) could be prepared as a new soluble precursor polymer for well-known polybenzimidazole (PBI). The thermal cyclization reaction accompanying the release of malononitrile molecules was studied using thermalanalysis and infrared spectroscopy.